Project: Irrational Exuberance

[Neutrino101]

Today I have assembled a drain valve that I intend to place in the lower compartment between the bottom 2 radiators. the plan is to simply undo the plug and attach a piece of flexible hose before opening the tap when I wish to drain the system. This is the first time I have bothered with a drain valve so I am open to suggestions if people think I have under or over engineered it. The plan is to have flexi tubing hidden in the lower compartment as it will be out of view and make maintenance much easier.



I also learnt an important lesson about puppies and PC building today. Don't place anything edible where the puppy can find it. Unfortunately my flexible tubing now has a few too many holes in it after the puppy found it whilst I was on the phone Will have to order some more...

 

[Neutrino101]

Looks about right to me. Expensive business drain valves.

You can also do it with a pair of QDCs but it doesn't work out much cheaper. I did a male QDC sitting on a spare pump outlet port (pump was conveniently at the lowest point and block had two in, two out in different orientations). Left the dust cap on and put the larger female QDC on a length of spare hose. Largely immaterial given that you've already got the parts but there you go *shrug*

Your right about them being expensive, I hadn't expected it to be quite so expensive when I decided to put it in. For anyone reading this and considering a drain valve the parts above come to about £46! Up to you to decide if it is worth it.

 

[Neutrino101]

More parts arrived today, a pair of GTX 1080 FE's, the ram, m.2 SSD, pump and PSU. Case is now expected at the start of next week so should be able to start and make some proper progress shortly.

 

[Neutrino101]

You meant M.2 SSDs?

I am also looking at U.2 SSDs but the options are very limited currently. Pretty much just Intel 750 series in 400GB, 800GB and 1.2TB. That 1.2TB is tempting however.....

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/solid-state-drives/ssd-750-brief.html

The Asus Deluxe has got 2 U.2 ports so could mount a lot of fast storage if I want to without having to use a PCI-E add in card. It does have a single M.2 slot hidden on the right of the board however it mounts vertically rather than horizontal. Also came with a bundled PCI-E M.2 adaptor.

 

[Neutrino101]

Just finished adding the backplates to the 1080 FE's. The EK black acetyl blocks and backplates are looking very smart. Should go well with the overall Black/White theme for the build. Will link them together with some white Primochill Revolver fittings and acrylic tube.

 

[Neutrino101]

I have a question for everyone as I am in two minds about this myself. Does the Dominator Platinum RAM look good against the white/black of the motherboard which will be matched with white/black cables, white/black fittings and a white/black/ case or should I paint the RAM white?





Any thoughts?

 

[Neutrino101]

That dog is adorable, what make/model is it?

It's a 2016 German Shorthaired Pointer from Shropshire with about 12 weeks on the clock.

 

[Neutrino101]

Looks like the community are behind leaving the RAM unpainted so I will go with the collective wisdom on this one. I was struggling to decide one way or the other so this makes it easier.

 

[Neutrino101]

Good news is my Nvidia HB bridge has arrived.



The bad news is that I hadn't read the manual for the Asus Deluxe 2 before ordering.... Turns out if I want 16 lanes for each card then I have to use a different slot...

To make maters worse they are now sold out of the 3-Slot bridge that I should have ordered so can't correct the mistake. Looks like it will be back to plan B of using 2 x flexi bridges until it gets back in stock. The good news is that the only thing stopping it fitting the EK blocks really is just those 2 pointy bits that will be easy to cut off and repaint when the correct sized bridge arrives.

Anyone need a 4 Slot Bridge? Going Cheap!

 

[Neutrino101]

Just a quick update for everyone as I have not posted for over a week. Sadly everything has ground to a halt as I am still waiting on the case from Parvum. Ironically its the first thing I ordered for the build however it will be 3 months since it was ordered next week and still no sign of it!

Slightly frustrating to have everything sat here and no case to put them in, should I jump ship to another case or wait it out? Not sure anymore, 3 months is starting to strain my patience.

 

[Neutrino101]

First obvious question is: does it all fit in another case that you're happy with the look of?

Parvum seem to be quote busy bit they did answer and we're helpful when I emailed them. Could be worth asking if there's an ETA.

They are indeed pretty busy at the moment and from what they have said it appears I have been a bit unlucky with this one, all manner of problems and things gone wrong. Currently on my 4th ETA, first was back in early June. Now had a shipping number for 7 days but UPS have still not been handed anything to deliver.

Fingers crossed it arrives soon as I can't find another case that will fit everything well having designed the build around the case. It's a bit frustrating sitting on a pair of 1080s with no case to put them in for a month. Looking on the bright side if I have to wait much longer then I can skip the 1080 and upgrade to TitanX

 

[Neutrino101]

My Parvum L1 case was finally delivered today after 3 months of waiting. Sadly it was however not delivered to me and instead given to a random house by the UPS driver!!! Delivery confirmed but not here.....

Investigation started to find where the moron delivered it but I am not holding out much hope of finding it. Considering GPS puts a dot on our house for the postcode and the name is on the gate I am not sure what more can be done. Typical that the out of the 5 deliveries I have had this week that just UPS and my case can't find the house.

Starting to get very frustrated with this.

 

[Neutrino101]

Good news, I managed to find the case. Emailed Parvum to tell them it had gone missing and they were quick to chase UPS. Got a call from the warehouse saying that they had spoken with the driver and he remembered that it had been delivered to a house with a black dog in the garden. Fortunately there is only 1 black dog within half a mile of my house so I went over and retrieved my case from the neighbours porch much to the annoyance of the black terrier who had taken up residence on it for the afternoon whilst they were out.

Fortunately it appears to have survived its ordeal undamaged however my run of bad luck has continued as there is no sign of any power switch or switch to MB power cable in the box. Will have to email again in the morning to get a replacement sent out... can jury rig something in the meantime as I am determined to get started on the build.

Also got my 3 slot HB bridge from Nvidia today so I am good to start and make some progress on this tomorrow.

 

[Neutrino101]

I have spent some time this morning starting to assemble the Parvum L1 case. For anyone who has tried to assemble flat pack furniture without any instructions then this is a similar experience but still very enjoyable. I have however realised that my plan to fully assemble the case before planning out where things will go is not going to work as due to the cases being built in multiple layers you have to install things like fans and rads as you go as otherwise the screw points will be hidden by another layer later and you will be forever taking it apart again to fit components.

I have therefore made a hasty loop plan in photoshop to help me place the radiators in the correct positions before I get started.

As my Photoshop skills are rubbish then I will explain the idea. The reservoir feeds to the pump which is in the lower bay, the pump goes to one of the 360mm rads which then feeds to the other before going to the 480mm rad. this then goes back up and to the CPU, this then feeds to the top 360mm rad before the graphics cards and back to the reservoir.

 

[Neutrino101]

Would it make life any easier if you went from one of the 360's up to the graphics, then up to the top 360 and then back down via the CPU?
Could even go res, 480 (large vertical column of water approx. equals res), pump, 360, 360, gpu, top 360, cpu, res. Just trying to reduce some of those long awkward runs - or what appear to be so on the PhotoChop

It's only now that I have the case in front of me that I am starting to get a feel for where I can or can't run the tubing. I will need to switch from Acrylic to flexi tubing as I pass through the 2 holes in the back plate before heading down to the lower compartment. I could always drill some holes but would rather work with the case if possible. Now I need to find some good fittings for changing from Acrylic to Flexi in those holes. Will need to give this some thought today. A quick photo from my phone below to show what I am on about. As the front rad is so large it completely blocks the gap at the front which means the only way down to the lower compartment is through the holes at the back.

 

[Neutrino101]

Just out of interest how are you planning on attaching a fan to the bottom of the 480mm rad?

Also are you planning on using flexi tubing and then fixing a pass through on them holes to switch back to acrylic?

What i did on mine was i was hide the flexi tubing above the rads on the side as the side panel hides it quite well although the tube may be a little tight.

Current plan is for 4 fans on the front of the 480mm rad so that they can been seen spinning slightly from the outside of the case, this pushes the rad right back against the back of the gap at the front.

Currently looking at Acrylic where it is visible and then using some of these https://www.overclockers.co.uk/xspc-g1-4-female-to-female-rotary-fitting-black-chrome-wc-280-xs.html secured in those holes to swap to flexi that will then run down below.

Will likely have to change plans slightly as it develops and I find out exactly what space I do or don't have.

 

[Neutrino101]

Okay awesome, If you wanted to use pass through i would recommend using these https://www.overclockers.co.uk/bits...s-through-fitting-carbon-black-wc-584-bp.html These are what i put in them holes, its nice and discrete and provides a better finish as you just attach flexi and acrylic fittings to the end. Also them pass through fit perfectly, and do not move at all once fitted.

They look perfect, can't believe I missed them. I take it you need a Female/Female connector for one side to then be able to attach a fitting? A bit hard to see from the photos but looks like they have one female side and a male on the other? Just added a pair to my order to be delivered Monday anyhow.

 

[Neutrino101]

Nope just a normal fitting don't need any female adaptor just a compression fitting on the side you want to have flexi tubing and a acrylic fitting for the side you want acrylic tubing.

Cheers, just looked at the photos again and can see that the internal thread goes the whole way through. In which case they are ideal, thank you.

 

[Neutrino101]

I got a bit of a surprise this evening. I was digging through the boxes of components that I have ordered over the last month and realised that there was a bit more at the bottom of the box than I expected. As I didn't have the case yet I have simply been opening up the box and having a quick look at things I was interested in then stored it all until it was needed.

You can obviously imagine my surprise when I found all of this at the bottom!



I ordered 64GB of Ram yet have been sent 10 boxes. Not entirely sure what I am meant to do with 40 x 8GB Sticks of 3000Mhz Corsair Dominator Ram! I suppose I could create a massive Ram Disk (Not tried that before) or perhaps I could build a model of Stonehenge out of Corsair Ram. I could at least have been sent something useful like 10 extra SSDs or a 6950X!

Alternatively if anyone from OcUK is reading this then perhaps we can negotiate the return of your couple of thousands worth of free memory you have sent me in exchange for copious amounts of Harribo.

 

[Neutrino101]

What? This is why you got from our warehouse? As a part of a order?

Yep, part of a large order I made a few weeks ago, I ordered 64GB and got all of this its all been sat in the box for the last fortnight, didn't dig down to the bottom as I wasn't ready to build the system until the case arrived this week. Had a few boxes of bits from OcUK over the last month and this lot is in one of them.