Project/build log - Bankrupt Me

[steve45]

Now i'm kinda starting this off a little late seeing as its been built for some time now, however this thread is more for future developement than the initial build itself.

I always wanted to try watercooling, when i first caught on it was all very exotic and fancy but i never had the money, knowledge or resourses to try it back then.
i had a good 6-7 years sidetracked from computers etc, job and cars took over my life, but circumstances changed, i found myself in a position where i could build myself a system, a system i could be proud of, and i had the time and money to do it with, well this is the story of that build.

basic spec run down of initial build

• Intel i5 2500k
• Asrock z68 extreme 7
• Corsair Vengeance 16gb
• 2x 6950 CF'd
• Lepa B850 psu

i'll get started with a look back.

PHASE:1
unfortunately i neglected to take lots of pictures with the initial build(will take loads in future.)

so here is what i started with, i put my system into an OCUK prewatercooled case 650D, which was great i loved it, but it wasnt my handy work i couldnt quite get comfortable with knowing that, i felt like i had cheated, so i had to right that.

PHASE:2
so roll on phase 2, after a month i decided it was time to get my hands in there and tinker.
so the order went in:

• 4x Bitfenix spectre 120mm blue LED fans
• XSPC EX360mm rad
• XSPC front single bay res
• various hose fittings
• Lamptron FC2 fan controller
• Masterclear Blue UV tubing
• Mayhems Oil Black fluid

whilst this order with in the post i decided to ready my case for the larger Rad and whilst i had the dremel out i thought i'd take out the grill in front of the front 200mm fan.

so with the case ready to receive the new parts, when the order came in i dove straight in there like a bull in a china shop as i usually do, in the process of plumbing the loop together i managed to well and truely bugger the threads on the EK pump...
order goes in for new pump.

• Laing DDC pump with EK X-TOPRev2

couple of days later i recieve pump and resume build, a little more careful this time.

fitted up ready for leak testing.

overnight leak test successful, now it was time to put my system back into the case.

WOOHOO, my first attempt at building my own loop.

now with that out of the way i was a lot more happy with the system, however there were still a couple of issues that were bugging me, firstly
the mismatched graphics cards, so the sapphire had to go, in place went a 2nd MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC to keep my first one company, there we go much better.

over the next couple of months I attempted to sort the cabling out numerous times(still not happy with it), i was inspired by a mod i seen in the cases gallery so i had to give it a try.
however my effort was not quite so polished, but it has proven to be effective.

Then a product came in to OCUK that i just had to have for my system.
Ballistix Tactical Tracer ram, so it was out with the vengeance in with the Ballistix.

.

 

[steve45]

well that pretty much brings us to the present day.

Recently i have been getting the itch to spend more money on the system.
now its not entirely necessary, but when has that every stopped anyone.
i have today decided to go ahead with earlier plans to add the graphics cards to the loop, so i think its time for Phase 3

PHASE:3
today i finalised and ordered the parts for the next phase of the build.

Phobya Xtreme 200 Radiator
EK Water Blocks EK-VGA Supreme HF Bridge Edition - EN (Nickel)
EK Water Blocks EK-FC Bridge DUAL Parallel 3-Slot
Cooler Master MegaFlow 200 Blue LED Case Fan
Masterkleer tubing PVC 16/10mm (3/8ID) Clear
Various Compression fittings, both for new parts and to tidy up existing hose routing.
A couple of bottles of Mayhems X1 UV Blue Premixed Watercooling Fluid 1L
and some rubber fan mountings.

just waiting delivery now, cant wait to get stuck in.
check back here later next week for updates.

in the mean time, now the question is what will be the most effective order of parts/hose routing? any advice on this matter?
It currently goes
res->pump->cpu->rad->res

i was thinking with the 360mm rad at the top of the case and the 200mm rad at the front at the bottom.
Res->pump->graphics->360mm rad->cpu->200mm rad->res

 

[steve45]

i just wanted to try something a little different, its been done before but its not something you see everyday.
i didnt use that hotswap bay so i removed it, there was a massive amount of room up top unused, so i thought why the hell not.

 

[steve45]

check post No2 for graphics card WC plans, parts on order!

will get some screens of idle + load temps tonight, but its low-mid 20's on idle, no higher than 49-50 during stress testing.
thats running 4.4ghz

 

[steve45]

Ok have decided i'm going to ditch the front bay reservior in favor of a tube res.
got a thread on wanted section of MM, if i dont get anywhere before the start of the week, may just buy new.

but apart from that i have just been thinking a little more about the layout of the loop, i'm unsure wether to have the rads in serial or between the components, my thinking is if i put a rad between the graphics and the CPU the water going into the cpu will be cooler, but i get the feeling it isnt as simple as that, plus if i go down this route the hose routing will be untidy, where as if i have the 2 rads together it will keep it all neat and tidy, whats everyone elses thoughts on this matter?

knocked up a couple of very quick mockups of what i mean.
Red - Rad
Grey - Fans
Blue - Pump
Green - GPU's

So, this?

Or This?

or if anyone has any other entirely different suggestions, please do contribute.

 

[steve45]

of course i wouldnt save it as a PSD... that would make life far too easy

heres one minus "hoses".

 

[steve45]

That does make a lot of sense.
so you reckon, it would be best to go RES-PUMP-CPU-GPU-TOP RAD-BOTTOM RAD-RES then?

 

[steve45]

That setup looks like it will be very tidy when finished, however an absolute ***** to route the hoses.

I just placed an order for an Alphacool Cape Fuzion Core 30 - Acetal - Black.
On thinking about it i couldnt be bothered messing about for used parts in the end.
this also means due to size it will only go in the one place, vertically on the right hand side of the motherboard.

 

[steve45]

Well today i took delivery of the last parts for the loop.
before i sign off and get to work with this loop i'll share some photos of the parts going in.

the ek multioption res x2 400 advanced Res is only a tremporary measure, i have an Alphacool Cape Fuzion Core 30 - Acetal - Black. on order however there has been an issue with the order, however OCUK are on the case, so just waiting out for that, but in the meantime this will be used(its a little big but it'll fit in the case), hopefully the swapover will be done the next time i drain the loop.

anyway, thats all for now, wish me luck i'm away to go break my computer

 

[steve45]

Well it all appears to have gone well(touch wood) system back up and running, damn its so quiet now, the build wasnt without problems but got there in the end.
time for a cuppa and some Dexter, will do a write up on this phase of the build tomorrow, along with plenty photos, just dont have the energy or focus just now.

 

[steve45]

Ok so, yesterday was quite an experience... nothing ever goes easy.
so i started by stripping out the case, out came everything, i then began to prepare the case for the 200mm rad up front, taking note of the bother stueng had fitting this particular rad i made the necessary cuts to allow for clearance, with this done, i went to go fetch the drill to make the holes on the mounting plate only to find the drill gone... sister borrowed it for her place along with all of the drill bits

oh well about an hour of faffing around trying to find something suitable to make holes with and i decided to just try mount it best i could with the existing holes, i managed to get 2 nuts all the way through but the rad is pretty secure, at this point i had spent almost 2 hours on this one part, i thought enough is enough, its secure for now i'll just revisit this at a later date.

so with all the modification work done(so i thought), i started to put the basic parts back into the case and out of harms way.

with this done it was time to fit the blocks to the GPU's, this was never going to be as simple as it should have been.
took the TF3 cooler off cleaned up the gpu core, fitted the mounting bolts/standoffs only to find the lip of the ram heatsink fouls the block causing it to not sit flush on the core, so off with the heatsink out with the dremel again, cut just enough clearance for the block to sit comfortably, mounted the heatsink again mounted the block
i then repeated this procedure for the 2nd card.

now i mounted the cards and the CPU block, so that all the parts are now in the case, i can now measure up tubing and cut to length. i didnt go to much effort to keep things tidy as hopefully soon i will be getting a different reservoir and will have to change the position of the pump etc, so will tidy things up a bit and remove excess tubing. Leak testing time, so i proceeded to fill the loop, which took around a bottle and a quarter to fill, mainly due to the MASSIVE reservoir. but all is well, ran all evening without issue, but will keep a very close eye for the next few days and wont leave running unsupervised

after some cable managment tidying as much as i can, done for the night!

Temps have been impressive, especially the GPU's i was shocked to see the difference fromt he stock air cooler, especially on load, not stress tested yet but a good couple of hours in battlefield 3.
CPU - min 21 - max 47
GPU - card 1 - min 30 - max 36
card 2 - min 32 - max 37
thats about 5-6 degrees off idle, but almost 20 degrees off load temps.
once i've done a proper stress test i'll get the results up.

on top of that the system is just so quiet now, without the stock coolers on.

build wasnt without issues but all has gone well in the end, i'm very happy.
still work to be done though in the up coming weeks/months.

• Niether pump or res are mounted properly, the res will be swapped out in the near future so i seen no need to permanantly fix it, and i plan on suspending the pump from the new res, so this is just a temporary setup.
  
  

• the 200mm res up front need to be mounted correctly, this will be corrected next time the loop is drained.

• the pull fan on the 200mm rad is not mounted properly, the mounting plates supplyed with the res only allowed for 1 200mm fan to be fitted, will have to purchase a 2nd plate to fit to the other side, so for the mean time that fan is bodged.

• intend to change the fluid to mayhems pastel blueberry blue, and possibly add blue dye to make it darker, but we will see how it looks first then experiment if i'm not entirely happy. May even contemplate changing colour scheme altogether i've found orange has been growing on me a lot recently, it would only requite a change of fluid and fans, hmmm something to think about.

all in all i'm extremely happy with the build now, once the niggly little issues have been worked out i think it will be left alone for a while, let my bank balance recover.


if there are any specific details anyone wants to know feel free to ask

 

[steve45]

cards seem fine to be honest, there is a fair bit of air being blown towards the cards from the front 200mm fans, the heatsink does get warmish but not enough to be concerned about.
it seems to be doing the trick.

 

[steve45]

yep thats the ones, EK-VGA Supreme HF Bridge Edition - EN (Nickel).
As far as i'm aware OCUK dont stock them however i do recall rjkoneill said somewhere on the forums that for EK products if you can get the part number he would order them in.
so if you are not in a massive rush give them a ring.
i believe this is the correct product number - EAN: 3831109805084
you will need the EK-FC Bridge DUAL Parallel or EK-FC Bridge DUAL Parallel 3 Slot depending on motherboard/which slots you have your cards in.

 

[steve45]

Yeah decent keyboard for the money, but the cat killed it when he jump up onto desk and knocked over my beer, now got a Filco majestouch 2 mech keyboard, and nothing can really compete with a decent mechanical if you can afford one.

 

[steve45]

Well it hasnt taken long for me to get the itch again, got some new stuff on route...

trying to eliminate as much blue from the system as i can definitely time for a change, all parts are in line with my new black/white colour theme

XSPC RayStorm CPU WaterBlock (Intel)
Alphacool VPP655 / Laing D5 Single Edition Pump
Alphacool HF D5 TOP - Black Acetal G1/4
Alphacool Cape Fuzion Core 30 - Acetal - Black (already have sitting waiting)
Mayhems Pastel Ice White 2l (Courtesy of Mayhems and OCUK, thanks guys!)
2m of Masterkleer Tubing PVC 16/10mm (3/8ID) Clear
OcUK Logo Rectangle Gel Case Badge - Black (couldnt resist)
Twin 3mm Ultra Bright White LED Kit (to fit on the CPU block)
Phobya Molex Extractor Kit and Sleeving Tool : PMTK
Black and White braid & heatshrink of allsorted sizes for PSU and other random system cables(not looking forward to this)
3x Xigmatek Crystal 120x120x25mm White LED Case Fan, not sure on these but getting these from a friend so will try them out first before splashing out on something more expensive.

all the parts above that i dont already have should be delivered within the next day or 2, unfortunately i'm stuck at camp till later this month so build and photos will have to wait till i have some time off.
cant wait to get my hands on the kit though

keep an eye out for updates later this month!

 

[steve45]

Well got an unexpected long weekend, so its time to start work, still not got all the parts... but i have everything i need to push forward with the WC loop rebuild thanks to OCUK for the last minute order of the new pump yesterday afternoon, which i received about an hour ago, the rest can be sorted later when they arrive.

so lets begin with some photos of the kit going in.

XSPC Raystorm CPU block.

Alphacool acetel D5 pumptop

Alphacool Laing D5 Vario Pump 655

Alphacool Cape Fuzion Core 30 - Acetal - Black

Mayhems Pastel Ice White

First of many!!! its gonna be a long afternoon-evening

will try to get as much done today as possible, will update when i call it a night, the less distractions the better, already got two sneaky ninja cats to contend with, that like nothing better than to stand on my back/shoulders and watch while i work...

here goes

 

[steve45]

Well its done, had to keep going till i finished
hit a bit of a snag half way through, i miscalculated the space i had in the case so the new res wont fit, i didnt take into account the bigger EK multioption 400 has fitting holes in the sides of the end caps where the alphacool one does not, even though smaller the extra space taken up by the fitting and hose at either end means it takes up more space.
So still using the 400, however the hose routing is tidyer than before, the 200mm Radiator at the front is now properly mounted, and the reservoir is also now properly mounted.
already noticed a 2-3 degree drop in CPU temp.
Also noticed even on full speed the D5 pump is noticably quieter than the DDC pump it replaced, which i am impressed with.

Very happy with the Mayhems Ice White Pastel, i think it looks brilliant in there, when i get the new fans and white LED's it should set off the whole interior, really looking forward to that, not so much the sleeving though, that i'm not looking forward to doing

ok now that is finished time for this!

 

[steve45]

Right got some better photos of the machine in its current state.

the next update will be mid March when i am off on leave where i will be "attempting" to do some sleeving, it will be my first attempt so it could go horrificly wrong
will also be replacing fans then too

Also just encountered a problem, after the build was complete, CCC has been reporting that the cards are no longer working in crossfire, telling me that the CF bridge adaptor is not connected, hopefully its just a simple matter that the link adaptor is damaged, but will have to wait till leave to get home and dig through my spares and find another one
performance is still more than adequate in BF3 for now so nothing urgent, just a little irriating is all...