Project: Dual Loop and Tidied :p

Ducky Spud · 3 Sep 2009 at 16:32

Following on from this thread where I was doing my first real mods to my PC, Im now working on finishing it off to a high standard and just making it look good!

This is my PC as it is now

Not too bad, but as the photo shows the cables are a bit messy and need sorting out so will be working on those. Also going to be painting the internals matt black. Also adding watercooling to my GPU and hoping to get a fully internal dual loop in my PC-A07

seen dual loops in them before but never fully internal... we'll see how this works out haha. Basic plan is like this: (excuse the shoddy sketchup skills)

Its a pretty rough idea but you can figure out the second loop, straight down from one of the res's into the DDC below, then into rad in front then the GPU block. Main problem Ive noticed so far is getting those res's to fit properly but should be possible. Would be easier using res tops for the pumps but wheres the fun in that

Anyway, photo of the pile of bits I've been collecting over time, still need the GPU block and tubing and then a few other little bits (black screws and such) but other than that I think Im all sorted

Spent all day braiding the cable extensions, takes forever but think they look alright. Need to do the rest of the case now which Im not looking forward too!

Doing all this is gonna mean Im gonna have to either use my mums pc or be running this one in a cardboard box lol. Need the weather to pick up a bit too for spraying the case, this constant rain isnt helping at all and dont want to be on my mums useless old thing for too long!

Anyway, not much more to update for a while, not much more I can do until I take my PC to bits and not too sure when that will be

Ducky Spud · 4 Sep 2009 at 00:42

Nope, I will be adding a 120mm rad just for the GPU, the rest is already set up to a double in the top of my case.

Was thinking about doing NB and CPU in a loop with the double rad and then GPU and mosfets in a loop with the single rad, but think I may be better just sticking to GPU only. Will see later on lol

Ducky Spud · 4 Sep 2009 at 16:01

Small update for you

Ripped my PC apart, completely stripped the case down so all clips, switches, feet etc are off and primed it

Drilled the holes for mounting my pump and drilled out the rivets holding in the hard drive cage first too so I wont go messing up my case after its painted!! Did a coat or primer this morning and another about 30 mins ago.

In the time between that Ive braided a couple more cables, SATA ones and my other pump. Also marked up where I need to cut the front panel to fit the rad grill so the rad can get a bit more air too it than the case allows at the moment.

Got a few photos but Im off to work now so will upload them later on

They're not exactly exciting anyway haha

Ducky Spud · 6 Sep 2009 at 17:55

Photos from the last update and a few more from the last couple of days.

The case completely stripped down of everything!! Photo before it was cleaned and prepped for painting so still all the greasy finger prints and such on there.

Dont know if its very clear, but just marked up the area I need to remove from the front panel here. Still not got round to this, but its pretty much next on the list, not much else I can do til the next deliveries get here in a few days

PC mid painting, this is after 2 or 3 coats I think. Added a couple more after this though.

Then test fitting parts for the new loop. Got 2 coats of primer, about 5 coats of black and still need to get a can of top coat to finish it off. Didnt have any in when I bought the others. But anyway, its looking alright, camera/me is rubbish so photos arent great but you get the idea

Looks like it should all fit alright. Just going to be the tubing at the res's which may be a problem, the heatsinks on my RAM may get in the way as they're pretty epic... Just wait and see!

Last photo... bit more braiding haha. Mostly done now, just a couple of problems with trying to figure out the HDD power cable and how best to braid it :confused:

Plus need to get some PCI-E extensions but am officially now skint haha

Ordered the GPU block, adapter, tubing and some more RAM sinks today along with a hell of a lot of allen cap bolts and such to finish off the build. Should be building it all up by the end of the week, fingers crossed

Wont be complete till next month though, aside from not having the money to finish off the cables fully and a few other bits, I also dont have my spare front bezels with me, they're in Sheffield, Im currently at my mums haha. PC will be almost complete with just a few holes in the front

Ducky Spud · 6 Sep 2009 at 18:16

Nope

Bought the DVD drive bezel off you, the fan controller was bought new. Sold yours to somebody else sorry

Ducky Spud · 8 Sep 2009 at 17:16

Got my vga water block today before coming to work, all parts ready to build the system back up. Just waiting on the new screws and such, seems pointless to build it up only to rip it apart again. Still still need to finish the front panel too but the interior of the case is finished, gave it a few coats me top coat yesterday and it was looking good this morning

just have to hope for the screws arriving tomorrow so it can be built.

One thing im still not sure about, is should i go for a loop with gpu and mosfets cooled by the single tfc rad and the other loop just being the cpu and nb cooled by a xspc rs240? Or stick with my original plan of gpu only and the other loop staying as it is already? Any ideas on these would be great

Ducky Spud · 8 Sep 2009 at 22:04

Cheers guys

Still unsure of loops. Think it will look better if GPU and mosfets are in a single loop but not sure on performance, which would be better overall.

Just home from work, nearly finished cutting out the front panel and the battery died so its recharging, will hopefully finish it tomorrow morning

Also spent some time rather boringly cutting out thermal tape to fit all the little heat sinks for my graphics card! Got 16 blue zalman ones and 20 black akasa ones! Advice again, Seen some places saying its good to put heatsinks on both sides of the PCB i.e. one on the VGA RAM chip and another on the underside of it? Guess it wont do any harm, but will it actually be much benefit?

Ducky Spud · 9 Sep 2009 at 00:31

Cleaned it first using some wipes Ive had for a while, bought them from a PC shop and theyre for cleaning your monitor and things, but also remove fingerprints from aluminium great as well

And yea, gave it a quick going over with some quite fine sandpaper, enough to rough the surface up a little but didnt want to do it too much. Also lightly sanded between the first few coats of paint as well.

As for what paint it was, its called Rust-o-leum or somthing, its shown in one of the first photos. I later bought a clear matt top coat and gave it a few coats of that too. Seems pretty good paint to me, its holding up well to the odd knock anyways

Ducky Spud · 9 Sep 2009 at 15:32

Not too sure, will check when i get home. It was quite fine but rough enough to create a texture on the metal if u get me. I'd guess around 400 but thats just a guess lol, like i said, will check when im home

EDIT: just checked, it was 200

Ducky Spud · 10 Sep 2009 at 00:27

Just finished off the front panel... sort of

Thats not the grill I want to use in the long term. Want one to match the hex grill I have on the top but cant find one anywhere!! May end up just buying 2 new grills, probably the common old stripes ones

Also still waiting on those damn screws, nuts and bolts and such!! The ones Im planning to use should hopefully look much smarter than those little silver ones

But yea, front pretty much done there! The actual cuts need sanding down a bit more, they're still a little rough, but on the whole not looking too bad

Ducky Spud · 10 Sep 2009 at 22:30

Currently trying to figure out if it would be worth me going the i5 route. Managed to get an MSI GD65 mobo for £63, another £150 for an 750 and then say £70 for some RAM. Could sell my current system for about that much (get around £100 CPU, £50 RAM, £110 mobo + blocks or somthing like that) and hopefully end up with somthing better! Would mean losing mosfet and NB blocks so loops would just be CPU only and GPU only... a lot simpler than I originally planned! Plus may have trouble getting the Swiftech GTZ to fit the new mobo.... will see when I get the board tomorrow

Ducky Spud · 12 Sep 2009 at 15:25

Cheers for the info

i've seen on ek's website the supremes will fit. Posted in the mm asking for prices for my current kit including the GTZ, would be easier if a mounting kit came out but cant find any mention of one coming out soon.

Think i will go i5, got the board like u say so might as well use it to upgrade

Ducky Spud · 13 Sep 2009 at 17:48

Right, system pretty much built up and finished now! Still plan on going i5 next month, but need somthing in the time being so built it back up with the P5Q-E and E8500. Will give me a chance to compare temps and such this way too. I expect them to be better purely because of the better airflow from having a decent grill in the front.

Anyway, photos. And lets start boring haha, all the nuts and screws and things I bought, wanted to do this case right, all the little details too

Test fitting a few parts for the new loop

Sorting the loops out and fitting the GPU block. I decided to include the mosfets in the GPU loop in the end. Makes it a bit of a mess of tubing inside but think it would be the most even distribution for the loops really.

Naked card! :eek:

And in its new outfit

Still trying to figure out the best way for the last bits of the loop here. GPU loop sorted but the NB/CPU loop still needs a few finishing bits sorting.

And there, finally finished! Its one hell of a mess in there and did all this before connecting the front panel wires... doing it after this was pretty tricky haha

One loop filled...

Two loops filled

The purple looks pretty good here in my opinion... check out the photos later on to see it the morning after, looks well faded

The res's are at slightly different heights or there was not enough room for the tubing

System turned on, pumps working, fans spinning... all looking good! Apart from that gap in the front haha! Still need some elastic to bungee mount my HDD's in there, and also need to get my spare bezels, theyre in Sheffield and Im not back there until the 8th Oct! Excuse the blur, I have trouble taking photos with the flash off but they look better when they do work out

The obligatory close up shots of rad grills! People always seem to include them so here are my battered old ones! Need to get some new ones that match anyway

And after it taking so much time I wanted to get a photo of the 24pin cable... this is about as good as it gets haha. Wraps round the tubing which is leaving the bottom of the purple res

And just because sombody always asks to see the back too, my average cable tidy job

Pics of it this morning, check out how much more... watery I guess, the purple is. Its faded loads. And everybody moans about Feser leaving gunk, the pink is Feser and apart from dying my res its been fine. The purple is Primochill ICE and its left loads of gunk all round the waterline in the res :confused:

Not the best... And it doesnt glow under UV and its supposed to... Personally Im sticking with Feser from now on!! Also SATA power cable just hanging down... sorry, like I said, its not in use yet so just there temporarily until I get hard drives sorted out

And thats it for now! Still need to get the hard drives in there like I said, but on the whole I think thats pretty well done, and its a pretty thorough job! Every screw replaced pretty much, mobo screws, case screws, fan screws... everything lol. The PCI-E cables need work as mentioned in another post earlier, but they can wait, just need to buy and braid some extensions.

But yea, fully internal dual loops in a Lian Li PC7... quite a feat!

Hope you guys like!

Ducky Spud · 20 Sep 2009 at 17:42

Mr Kingston said:
very nice rebuild mate, glad to see my rad has been put to a good home what rad u using in the roof ?

Its an XSPC RS240, had to be a slim one to get it to fit right and not block too manny of my 5.25" drives. Does the job quite well though

PwnDirect said:
Nice to see it finished looks good my only critism would be fluid / tubing colour think I personally would have went for white tubing.

So what are your idle/load temps ?

Under UV lighting it looks better, Ive just not fitted the CCFL after rebuilding lol. The pink fluid is in clear/UV blue tubing so looks pretty cool, like in my sig

I do quite like white tubing though, keep seeing build using it and Im being tempted!

As for temps, I was pleased with them but after a bit of stress testing they sort of stayed higher than they were, I was getting quite confused. If you look at photos though, my exhaust fan at the rear was mounted the wrong way round, so no exhaust fans and hot air just building up inside my case! Fixed now though

So now, temps are:

Idle: CPU ~ 32-34, GPU ~ 35
Load: CPU ~ 60 (using prime95, close to 70 using IBT), GPU ~ 55 (about 30 mins looping Crysis GPU bench @ very high, 1680x1050, 4xAA)

So not too bad

GPU was getting upto about 80 before so thats a massive improvment, plus now it doesnt sound like a tornado!! CPU has stayed about the same despite removing mosfets from the loop but Im not too fussed with that, was happy with it anyway.

I am however selling most of my hardware in a week or so and upgrading to i5

Got the mobo in the launch day deal and just waiting til pay day for RAM and CPU. Got a buyer for current mobo and RAM so its just CPU and a couple of blocks to sell now, then its all gone haha