Project: Desk Rad

[JohnTedd]

LOL ... those P18x cases soon fil;l up with cables don't they !
and that PSU dwarfs the space available, good to see yo uwent for the front fan mod, that was one thing i never understood with antec, they overlooked some of the simplest of things, and that case was supposed to have been designed by expert users !!

I totally agree that the fan in the middle of the bottom compartment has always been a pain even when I had a much smaller PSU. Cables were always in danger of hitting the blades too (due, of course, to my lack of cable management ).

I'm loving the overall "different" approach to watercooling arrangements, and i'm liking your sideways thinking

I too tend to agree that it makes more sense to have the RAD etc outside the case for cleaning purposes !

Think i'll keep an eye on this thread and your progress

BTW ...... impressive "first shopping list" !!

Thank you for the +ve comments. The main reason I like the external RAD idea is that the idea is to get the heat away from all the computer components, so why not go the whole hog and take them out of the case to a frankly huge heat sink (the room). Following my re-org to having the reservoir at the corner of the desk, bleeding the system is a piece of cake .

EDIT:

have you looked at the MIPS RAM blocks ? it's what i'm going to give a whirl to cool the 8GB (4x2GB) of Corsair Dominator GT RAM in my setup rebuild.

My original shopping list included Dominator GT RAM and I wasn't sure whether the MIPS was suitable (yes I was aware of it). However the Dominator GTs seemed to be out of stock everywhere and no one seemed to know when they would be in stock and since I was doing this build over Xmas I downgraded to the Dominator RAM. My plan was to see how bad the AirFlow fans were and to take it from there. I also thought (wrongly for some reason) that I could slow them down with my BigNG. Furthermore I must confess to being quite a big EK fan and all their products I've used to date are top notch, so I'm still leaning towards the EK ones.

 

[JohnTedd]

Project Update

After having a go at overclocking and seeing the water temp rise to 29 deg C I decided that I needed a bit more cooling in my loop. Since I still had the punctured RAD I decided to try to fix it. I started a thread on the subject (http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18227922). The summary is that the options are:

1. Don't risk it - buy a new one.
2. Solder it.
3. Repair it with car radiator repair kits - Liquid Metal or Leak-Fix.

I chose Leak-Fix mainly because it was in stock.

I immersed the rad in water and located the puncture (luckily there was only one despite me using the wrong screws in 6 holes). The location of the leak:

It took two coats of Leak-Fix to cover the hole to my satisfaction. It then looked like this:

I then immersed it in water again and blew into it, confirming the fix was water-tight. I then did the same thing but with a compressor (thanks to my father-in-law) and put 2 bar into it (that's equivalent to 20m of head pressure which is far more than my pump - 4m). With no leak detected I am pretty confident about the fix and I am now in the process of adding it behind the desk as a second rad.

More later...

 

[JohnTedd]

First Braiding

As I was re-organising my radiators I decided it was time to try out braiding for the first time ever (on an area that would be behind the desk in case it didn't go too well) and braid the fan cables.

I had trouble getting the first fan connector off and needed my USB microscope to see why it was proving so difficult (cos my eyes aren't as good as the used to be). Turned out that the securing pin had curled up rather than being pushed down below the plastic. With the help of the microscope I was able to push them down and get the pins out. Each subsequent fan connector proved easier to remove than the last, so I feel a lot more confident about doing that than when I started.

I also didn't really know what sized braid I needed. I bought short lengths of a variety of sizes - 3mm, 6mm and 10mm. When I received them the 3mm looked tiny, although it does expand. I gave it a try on my first fan cable and it certainly expanded OK, but the result is that you can see the wire through the braid and the braid itself appears slightly weaker and has lost its shape.

The second one I used the 6mm, which was easy to thread with the fan cable and looks much better.

I also wanted the 3 fan cables on the rad to end up roughly the same length, so I wanted to bunch the cable nearest to the side of the RAD. I tried using the largest braid but it's such a short length it kept disintegrating. In the end I gave up and braided it with another bit of partly knackered 3 mm and then coiled it and sealed it along with the other two braided wires within a large piece of heatshrink. Perhaps you'd call it a bodge, but I think it looks OK.

 

[JohnTedd]

Whoa, those last few pics are HUGE!

Thanks for pointing that out. I think I changed a setting on my camera, sorry. I'll give them a shrink.

 

[JohnTedd]

I'm going for an EK GPU full cover block i think, and that matches the MIPS blocks i have ordered but not paid for yet (mondays priority job after car warranty stuff - need to make a claim for repairs )
The MIPs blocks are good quality, just hard to get hold of here, and are expensive! they are compatible with Dominators as well as GT's and also mushkin i think, they do about 3 different ones, the Domiantor GT's i ordered came in damaged and the place i ordered from are having to wait for Corsair in the Netherlands to ship new units

I do know where to get the MIPS block but I'm surprised you think they match the EK GPU block - at least better than the EK-RAM Dominator block...

I am pretty sure that I'll go for the EK-RAM, just not sure when. I'm still doing the braiding at the moment and I've got to plumb in the second rad in a more permanent way. I have some photos of the second RAD in position but they are still on the camera.

 

[JohnTedd]

hmmm, ok i didn't explain myself too well there did i

...or if it's suitable for 4 sticks of RAM, but yes it is basically the same thing.

The EK-RAM is suitable for 6 sticks - as in a triple-channel DDR3 setup that I have. Of course I only have 3 sticks at the moment, but one day I might upgrade. However I feel that 12 GB is more than adequate for my current needs.

Thanks for the continued interest. Here's another photo to keep you interested...

Here's my new inline temperature sensor and silver KillCoil installed.

Unfortunately the inline temp sensor does not seem to be working, so it will be RMA'ed. Since I had to remove it I decided to re-work the loop slightly to give more room to get at the BigNG. Sorry I don't have any photos of that change either! Not very well organised on the photo front... Once the computer is back together I will make sure I get some good shots showing the new configuration and the braiding.

 

[JohnTedd]

As promised, here is a photo of the current double RAD set up at the back of the desk. I am still waiting for one fan to complete it, but I am already getting ~ 3 deg C lower temps.

 

[JohnTedd]

^^ can't see how much space there is between the desk there and the fans but there is enough for decent airflow yeah? Don't want a silly thing like that to impeed cooling do ya

That's an excellent question. There's about 2 inches between the wooden backplate of the desk and the fans and about an inch between the radiator and the end of the desk (and hence the wall if I push it up against the wall). I honestly don't know if this is "adequate" and certainly with the one rad and three fans at 700 RPM it probably wasn't. However now I have currently two 900 RPM fans - one on each RAD) and I can feel the airflow when sitting at the desk.

 

[JohnTedd]

Fair play on tis i dont think i would have attempted the rad fix but it seems to of worked really well. How are you finding braiding as i havent ever done it and i think i might on my rebuild.

The rad fix was an experiment and I would only have deployed it if my testing went OK. I think it really helped having access to a compressor to put the fix under more pressure than the pump would provide. That gave me a lot of confidence. I may have felt differently if the rad had been inside my computer case, but the worst that'll happen for me if the rad leaks is that the floor will get wet.

I have been getting better at the braiding and can do a fan cable in about 20 mins. I don't have the right tools but that doesn't seem to have mattered, although it does sometimes take a while to get the fan connector off. I am getting better at getting the right length of braiding and hence using less heatshrink. I am on the last leg of my current phase of braiding all the cables for the BigNG. Once that's all back in place I will post some more photos and describe the whole braiding experience in more detail.

If you are interested in braiding I recommend reading this forum post (from Australia):

Braiding Guide

 

[JohnTedd]

First Braiding Results

Here are the results of my first set of braiding, showing how much tidier the wiring now looks and, incidentially how much easier it is to wire everything up as I decided to use colour coding with my braiding.

Here are the braided sensor wires:

All of these are braided with 3mm braid by removing the connector before braiding.

I also braided my Y-cables for my fans. I did not take the connector off in this case - I threaded a 6mm braid over the male connector after having covered the prongs with gaffer tape to stop them snagging.

In order to get the heatshrink over the connector I had to stretch it using pliers. I found this technique very useful. It's amazing how hard you can stretch the heatshrink and afterwards it still shrinks right down:

I also used some cable coil to group cables and the results are very pleasing in my opinion:

I did have two braiding failures - in both cases the braid pulled out of the heatshrink. I don't know if I hadn't shrunk it enough or if the heatshrink I used was too big:

 

[JohnTedd]

looking very nice.

i cant really tell from that bottom pic, but it might be that you are not allowing enough braid to be held by the heatshrink

Certainly is possible. I only had 1m of black and I had already braided a 80cm fan extension cable, so I was making this bit "stretch" to this fan cable. Consequentially I'm sure I did leave the heatshrink a bit short.

However I also suffered the same issue with another cable when I was threading it through the case hole. I guess I tugged a bit hard! Anyway I fixed both of them with new bits of heatshrink.

I still have a little bit to do to finish the wiring, but I am waiting on my replacement inline temp sensor to arrive... Not sure when that will be.

 

[JohnTedd]

T-Balancer BigNG Update

A while back I noticed that my pump (which is controlled via my BigNG) would go to 100% for a few seconds every few minutes. I couldn't work out why this would be so I posted on the mcubed support forum. The thread is here for those interested:

mCubed support thread

Initially there was a theory that the BigNG could be overheating if I was drawing more than 20W total analogue power. With the pump drawing up to 18W on its own I could well be pushing the limit (however I thought not). Apparently it is possible to get more out of the BigNG by adding cooling - bigger heatsink or watercooling it.

However it seems that upgrading to version 3.4 of the firmware was all that was required. This version comes with the Navigator alpha release 2.12.

I will keep an eye on it with this new version, but so far so good.

 

[JohnTedd]

Overclocking Update

I have been running with a BCLK of 200 MHz for a while with a CPU Multiplier of 20 and a RAM Multiplier of 8. This compares to the OOB configuration of 133 MHz, 26 and 12 respectively. This gives:

* CPU 4000 MHz
* RAM 1600 MHz

The RAM is rated at 1600 MHz but I have had it at ~1800 MHz in other overclocking attempts.

Last night I increased the CPU Mult to 22, giving a CPU frequency of 4400 MHz and I got my best video convesion figure of 15 minutes for the whole of the Downton Abbey series (my benchmark).

For some reason BCLK of 205 MHz doesn't seem to work for me even if I reduce the CPU Multiplier back down to 20. May be I am being simplistic, but given that I can get the CPU to 4400 MHz and the RAM to 1800 MHz and a BCLK of 205 gives CPU 4010 MHz and RAM of 1640 MHz I am discounting those components as objecting to the extra 5 MHz BCLK. Perhaps it's the NB? I have seen other review sites that have managed much higher BCLK figures.

 

[JohnTedd]

Glad you got your pump surging sorted

I hope so too. I am not 100% convinced that the new firmware entirely fixes it. I have heard a few noises that may have been the pump, but they are now few and far between. Of course those noises could have been the central heating pump which is in the airing cupboard in te same room.

how do you find the "silver KillCoil" .... i was contemplating this myself, are there any situations when it should not be used ? and best place to insert it in the loop ?

This is my first time using a kill coil so I hope I have put it in a good place. I don't actually know if it is working, but there's no obvious algae build up. Dunno how I tell if there's anything else lurking in the water - I am not about to drink it to find out!

 

[JohnTedd]

Thanks for the tip. I don't possess a lighter but I did try that with the gas burners of my hob. I must have I left it in the flame too long as it caught fire!

Do you have any other suggestions for other suitable heat sources that won't cause a fire? Soldering iron?

 

[JohnTedd]

Buy a lighter? Lol.

I was waiting for someone to say that

But really I was wondering if anyone had used a heat source that still singed but was less likely to burn. Perhaps lighters are such a heat source, but I thought some electrical thing might be less likely to cause combustion.

 

[JohnTedd]

hair dryer?

Is that hot enough to singe?

 

[JohnTedd]

Thanks for all the tips. I'll give them a go next time I'm doing some braiding.

 

[JohnTedd]

or you could just get one of these.....

I never knew such things existed, but I think that a gas soldering iron might be more useful, particularly as my electric soldering iron is pretty knackered. Thanks for the tips.

I did some searching for gas soldering irons and found one that had a hot knife attachment. Someone else mentioned to me that a hot knife is great for fusing the end of a braid, so perhaps a gas soldering iron with such an attachment is the way to go.

 

[JohnTedd]

Hi John, just managed to puncture my rad which is the 360 version. Was the stuff you purchased from halfords and was it pretty good too?

Thanks, Joe

Hi Joe

The Plastic Padding's Leak-Fix is pretty easy to use. It does go off very quickly so you only want to make up a very small amount at a time (you mix two pastes together). And it is very stinky, so I recommend applying it somewhere with good ventilation. And use something to apply it that you don't want - I used the end of a zip tie. I put two coats on before I tried it out and I was able to get at the hole fairly easily once I'd bent the metal plate with the screw hole out of the way. I checked it out visually.

I also submerged the whole rad in the bath to make sure I knew where all the holes were before fixing (thankfully only the one). And I re-submerged it after the leakfix had gone off to make sure that it was airtight. Finally I borrowed by Father-in-law's compressor to really stress it. Otherwise you'd need to connect your pump to the rad.

The rad is now in my loop and has been working fine as far as I know for the last month.

Best of luck!