Dremel Time
If I could turn back the clock I'd have made the 24-pin hole wider and tucked it in further behind the mobo. The hole pictured above is large enough to get the 24-pin through but the angle to the motherboard means its a very tight fit getting it past it. Would be a lot easier with a wider hole and I'll widen it next time the computer comes apart. The hole at the bottom for sata cables is currently unused as cables are too short.
The 8 pin connector hole is perfect. Couldn't go further left due to the metal support thats there.
Silverstone's mobo trays are
thick, took a few reinforced dremel discs to cut through.
Hole to route cables from PSU
Quite tough getting a wide enough hole to fit the thickest cables through. Cutting the hole right up to the edge of the mobo tray slot without cutting into it took some time.
Realised after putting the case back together that I could cut the side bar off (between the red lines) and it wouldn't be a problem. Next time its apart it shall be done! Had to dremel the hole from underneath:
Don't Trust Used Fatboys
A few hours into an earlier leak test and the tube on the pump output sprung a nasty leak, a litre of f1 sprayed everywhere. No electrics were harmed thankfully.
This was the offending fatboy:
The tube had been stretched and used before. That coupled with the awkward angle of the tube onto the barb must have caused the leak. I've learnt my lesson and have wormdrives on pump and rad, cable ties on all visible connections and clips on the bloodrage IOH (dont trust its soldered barbs)
Leak Testing Final Loop
I'd have liked the CPU to have come straight after the rad in the loop, but I couldn't have IOH to GFX as the tubes would unavoidably kink.
Cable Routing
Love this case
Silencing the Pump Vibrations
The pump dampening kit you can buy does little to nothing to stop vibrations. But the metal block to fit the pump to is great and I wouldn't nest the bare pump on foam as it would warp and possibly melt it.
I originally cut a cradle out of box foam to mount the pump on, and stuck the cradle to the case with the sticky pads included in the dampening kit, but this cradle still transmitted most of the pumps vibrations:
I then cut most of the cradle away, and used layers of various bits of foam from components' boxes. Vibrations gone.
CPU Lapping
All done
400 grit, all the way to 10 micron. Lapping Kit came with glass base.
4870x2
Be careful when ordering 4870x2 make sure it's to ATI reference as there are a couple of newer models that have custom coolers and the board layout has changed, making it impossible to fit waterblock. Asus Tricool card which I bought first without knowing is one of these (thinking it was Asus's older reference car). Couldn't return the card as I'd messed about with it.
Then bought a Sapphire. Fidly fitting the waterblock. I did what EK recommended and applied the block twice, freshly applying as5 inbetween to ensure maximum contact.
got some ac ryan locking sata cables. great for component end of cable, but didnt fit in the mobo so had to cut off the locking clip and file down the plastic
zalman ZM1000-HP - this thing is as quiet as it gets
sorry log isnt really complete, was a gradual build over a few months, i ran a water loop on my old pc spec just to get used to working with water. then slowly added and changed things along the way.
few things of note:
The AC ryan cable braiding kits are a bit pants. the heatsink doesnt come in the right sizes for all the different braids, was far too big for the smaller braids used for fan wires etc. the murdermod cable braiding kits look far far better, failing that get your AC ryan braiding and heatshrink separately.
the lian-li bay mounted HDD rack doesnt sit right in this case, front grill protrudes a cm or so,
i managed to overload one of the 4 fan channels on my fan controller with an ac ryan quad fan splitter and it burnt out, pretty sure each channel could handle 4 fans but the cable had LEDs on each fan socket which must have overloaded it.
4 x 12" UV cathodes works well for lighting up case, i didn't find 2 to be enough. also tried 2 blue cold cathodes and 2 UV but the blue ones deaden the effect of UV quite a bit.
