Project: Kodiak

[Verloren]

Hey all, I have been working on a new build for a couple of months though (slow progress, work and other responsibilities) and it was suggested I post a project log on here. I will space out the initial updates to make it easier to digest (as opposed to a massive 120 picture first post lol).

I wanted a new build because I havent built one in ages, plus those Sandybridge processors have looked mighty tempting for a while now.

The initial plan for the system was to mod a case to take 2 full water cooling loops. Those loops would be cooling a P67 based i7-2600k system with 2x 6950 in CrossfireX. Supporting thast cast would be 16GB Vengeance memory and 2 OCZ Vertex 3 SSDs. It would be OC'd (naturally) with a target clock of 5GHz.

My first problem was to choose a case to put this lot in. My first thought was an AT server case lying in the server room at work doing nothing. I looked at it and thought it could be awesome (something like this: http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/3694/cimg0876largeoq1.jpg - Disclaimer: that is not a picture taken by me, I found it via google image search). However, after talking about the build idea with a friend he brought up an interesting question, is it even physically deep enough to take a 360 rad in the roof (I was dead set on 2 360 rads being housed internally) and after a quick measure it wasnt. Scrap that idea.

Obviously the best choice of case is probably a TJ07 or 800D, but they are too common, everyone and his dog builds a system in an 800D. It was then that I saw the Mountain Mods cases! I shied away at the prices, but in the end I couldn't help myself so I configured a U2UFO:

I had previously decided I wanted to use Aquatube reservoirs, in fact a huge part of my case search was dismissing case after case because I was so fixated on having 2 Aquatubes next to each other in the front of the case (It doesnt help that I live in an apartment with no spare room or outside space with which to do any serious modding)! I also wanted to single sleeve every cable in the system with black high density stuff and black heatshrink for a stealthed look.

It was at this point that I drew a pretty bad, mostly to a 1:3 scale drawing of the idea in my mind:

The plan for that rear exhaust was changed to become an intake, I never corrected the sketch though >.< .

Anyhow fast forward to deliveries:

Sleeving materials and spare psu connectors

The initial order with 50 feet of sleeving and 5 feet of heatshrink, I quickly realized this wasn't enough

so I ordered a further 35 feet of the 1/8" stuff and 15 feet of 3/8" stuff (just in case)

Reservoirs and fillports

The reservoirs, sorry for the many pictures, but I really was obsessed with these at the time:

Aquatube 5.25" mounting brackets (2 of them) and 2 faceplates

I discovered these while cutting the box up to put in the recycling. My wife quickly snapped these up and I haven't seen them since.

Case delivery:

I opened the box to find an inner box surrounded by those nasty polystyrene shavings - the cat seemed to love them and proceeded to go fishing

With the inner box open after removing the cat

In the top right corner you can see the cling film wrapped parts that make up the 5.25" drive bays, next to it is an ATX pin removal tool and to the right of that there is a large packet of screws, bolts, LED's, switches, PCI brackets etc etc. Directly below the fixings package is that cardboard roll, wrapped up in that are the 2 hard drive mounts. At the bottom of the picture is the horizontal motherboard brace.

Under this is the motherboard tray parts, casters, more fixings, 6 panels, 2 struts and so on... a lot of parts!

AANND like a bad movie I'm going to finish with

::::: TO BE CONTINUED :::::

 

[Verloren]

Yea sorry, I copied the wrong link and didn't notice because my thread was stuck in moderation

All fixed now!

 

[Verloren]

Ok, lets get right to what the case looks like most of the way through construction:

I had forgotten to take pictures during the build process, I was far too fixated on the task at hand!

The HDD mounts are below, these will not be mounted to the case until I get the fan filters and and anti-vibration material.

I already had one SSD mount so I went ahead and mounted it.

The case configuration I went with has 12 120mm fan holes, these obviously need filling:

I originally intended to go with Enermax TB Silence fans with red LEDs, but after a friends recommendation I changed that to the red Xigmatek crystal series fans.

These look damn nice spinning. Quite silent, don't move as much air as I expected though (to be fair, the test was subjective - I put my hand i the stream - its also pulling through a fairly dusty fan filter which that can't be helping much).

After pulling it out of the case and sitting it on the floor next to an Antec Tri-Cool on Medium speed, I can say that it seems to push about as much air as the Antec (could be more, its hard to tell), but it is definitely quieter. I'm happy

The fan spacing on all the panels is 15mm (as per my request), so for radiators I chose 2 XSPC RX360s.

These things were much bigger in person than I expected them to be (not the length so much, but the sheer thickness)!

Because my chosen colour scheme is red I chose to get 3L of red Feser F1 coolant.

Yes I know pre-mixed coolants have their issues with block blocking and such, but if I see that problem come maintenance time I will switch to distilled water, kill coil and some blood red dye.

If you notice that on the previously posted sketch I had planned for 25mm fan shrouds. So I searched my favourite online stores for some. I didn't like what I saw though, it was all way more expensive than I deemed a plastic frame to be worth. So after a quick think I realised that the Xigmatek fans were also 25mm thick. After a quick eBay search I had bought 6 99cent POS fans from China.

A close up of these fans. I plugged this one in and its air movement was terrible, it was barely noticable at about 4 inches away. It also made a high pitched whine sound while spinning that only got louder when held in a horizontal position. Truly the worst fans I have ever tested!

20 secnds later I had fixed the fan, it is now infintely more useful now than it ever was before:

All 6 of them prepped, all that's left is to sand the roughness where the fan struts were (I did do this, I just failed to take any pictures of it)!

By this point I was thinking about my watercooling loops in detail, planning exactly what I wanted and where I wanted them.

Loop 1

Aquatube => MCP655 => T block => Drain port / Swiftech Apogee XT => MOSFET blocks => Southbridge => Radiator

Loop 2

Aquatube => MCP655 => T block => Drain port / gpu block 1 => gpu block 2 => radiator

Below is a very quick sketch from multiple angles of my initial loop ideas. This does not take into account dimensions of parts in the case or anything like that, I just did it while on hold at work!

It was now that I decided exactly where the drain ports would go so I could mask it out ready for the holesaw. To do that I made a 1:1 scale paper mock-up (used liberal amounts of magic tape to hold it together!) of the MCP655 pump to ensure I would leave enough space for everything.

What did you really think I would make a full paper mesh of the pump? I don't have that much patience!

Find out what happened next after the break!

I anticipate having caught up to the current project progress within the next couple of updates, but that said, all comments, suggestions and concerns are welcome even during the catchup phase, so don't be shy! Its never too late to change things!

 

[Verloren]

@Evoss Haha I knew it was going to be an 18" cube, but I was still surprised by it's real life size! I am also faced with the current problem of having nowhere to put such a huge case under my desk without compromising my comfort. Impulse buying is awesome!

@Hyburnate Yes, that is a Razer Lycosa, it's a decent keyboard but too noisy while in use for me. I've only had it a year, but I am already thinking of replacing it ;(

 

[Verloren]

This post will be much more picture heavy than previous ones because I realise I starved you guys of case pictures

I built the reservoir assemblies next.

Unfortunately, I noticed that one of the supplied bolts hadn't been stamped out correctly, and was impossible to tighten

I emailed Aquacomputer with this picture and they happily shipped a single bolt out to me from Germany... they even sent it express post and I received it in the USA in 2 days, that can't have been cheap for a jiffy bag containing 1 small bolt!

I then attached the faceplates to the bay mounts from the first post (I had painted the bay mounts black too, none of this was pictured though) and mounted those into the drive bays at the front of the case.

I think they look pretty good in their spots! The astute among you will have noticed that the faceplates from the first images and the case shots above look different. This is because the G1/4" ports I wanted facing upwards were at a 45 degree angle instead in their proper orientation. So to counter that I just flipped the faceplates around so the Aquacomputer branding faces into the case upside down (almost impossible to see because the reservoir obscures it).

Now more shots of the case in its built form:

This is a view of the back of the case. Notice the 120mm fan hole on the removable motherboard tray, the 2 PSU holes (the one of the left is covered with an etched smoked grey acrylic blanking plate) and the 2 120mm fan holes on the bottom. Those bottom fan holes could be used for a 240 rad or as the hard drive mounts as I intend to use them.

You can just about see the horizontally orientated motherboard tray here. The top window should provide a nice view over the components.

This shot was only kept because of the colouring. This is the colour and texture of the case as it really is. Notice that unlike the previous photos, the flash isn't illuminating all of the bumps in the textured powder coat making it look a much lighter colour than it actually is (I don't have any AA batteries for the flashgun to get diffused lighting - I took better pictures at a later date).

A view of the front panel between the 2 sets of 5.25" bays. I haven't made a cable harness for the power switch yet. I realise that my sleeving job on the LEDs is beyond horrible... but that doesn't really matter as this section will not be visible upon completion.

The switches are also not the ones that came with the case, I chose to change them for Lamptron anti-vandal ones. I chose a black momentary with red led ring for the top switch to be used as a power button and a black latching red dot led switch for the bottom to be used for lighting. The 2 LEDs are red ones, and I only have a use for the top one as the HDD activity light, I need ideas for the 2nd LED!

Below are the switches that came with the case and are currently sitting idle. Its a shame really as they are nickel coated anti-vandal switches :/

It was at about this time I decided what I was going to do about another design flaw I noticed with the Aquacomputer Aquatube bay mounts, the back riser plate on them (presumably to mount a pump) obstructs the rear G1/4" ports and could not be allowed to stay. I realised I had to do something about this before I painted them, but I didn't have any ides, which is why the paint job on just those parts of the bay mounts didn't have any care or attention paid to them.

I had a stroke of genius when I was staring at it through the camera and broke out the Tin Snips:

I then hid the sharp edges with some rubber edging

Next I decided to use my pump mockup and planned out my drain ports. My original plan was to have the GPU pump outputting to towards the back of the case and have the drain port near the back. The CPU pump was going to be outputting towards the left side panel with the drain port more or less central.

However when I thought about that, I couldn't see how the CPU drain port would be in any way convenient if it was centrally positioned and scrapped that idea quickly. I then though about having both drain ports in a line at the side of the case, this had many advantages... not least of which was far easier access... But I mainly liked that idea for the aesthetics lol!

I masked up where they were going to go and drew round the fillports (badly, but whatever )

The left side of the bottom panel in the above picture is the back of the case and the top edge is the right hand side (when looking at the front of the case).

I then drilled the pilot holes

And readied the holesaw

I paused here to pluck up the courage to continue. This step was necessary because the last hole saw experience I had was not so clean lol. During a previous computer build when I lived in Cambridgeshire, I was drilling 2 118mm holes in the top of an Antec P182 for a 240 rad. The Antec P182 was a hard son of a bitch with its thick rolled steel construction, but I was persistent and the first hole came out okay. The second hole had to go through the honeycomb meshing on the roof so I thought it would be easier. The hole saw slipped a few times, but I kept at it, eventually the hole saw went through and the disk of honeycomb mesh came flying out of the holesaw on fire! It ricocheted around the motherboard tray (scratching the **** out of the black paint I had spent a week lovingly applying) and ended up embedded in next doors fence! This taught me a number of things, always stand behind the motherboard tray when cutting out disks (luckily I did), don't use full speed on a corded hammer drill to speed up the job, and always cut first, paint second!

Anyhow, this time the holes came out uneventfully (a good thing really considering this is a rented apartment and the only available open space I could reliably keep the cat out of, was the bedroom and on my wife's side of the bed :x !), the first hole (left side in the following picture) slipped once, mainly because I was slightly scared of ruining the nice powder coating (doh!), the second was fine though.

I was pretty happy with the result, and obviously that means the first thing I do is fit the drain ports!

(Yes, I fitted those before I sanded the rough edges, and it stayed that way for more than a month before I remembered to smooth the edges!)

A couple of shots with the drain ports fitted and the case re-assembled:

I'm holding the SSD mount in its final position to illustrate the position of the drain ports relative to their closest components. The large black upright on the left of the image is the motherboard brace.

Ok thats all folks! Next time there will be fillports, radiator mounting, cable sleeving, fittings and a delivery I am expecting to receive tomorrow (yes that means this log will have finally caught up, just in time for the good stuff too)!

 

[Verloren]

@SGWills I currently have no plans for them - I initially thought about a CMOS reset switch, but I'm not sure I can be bothered... besides that would only require 1 =P

If you want one, I can send one over to you... I believe I have enabled trust now so you can send a message through that.

 

[Verloren]

We have a lot to get through in this post, so lets jump right into it.

The next thing I did was attempt to uni-sleeve a 6-pin PIC-e cable.

I will be re-using my Antec True Power Quattro 1000W PSU thats in my current build. The cables look like this in their stock configuration:

after I stripped it:

And finally, after I finished sleeving it:

It looks ok to me, but I do wish I used less heatshrink. I guess I could re-do it at some point, maybe with a red wire too. We shall see what sleeving I have left at the end.

I also had some temperature sensors to sleeve:

By this point I was so incredibly bored... and once again I used far far too much heatshrink. I will definitely redo these if they are visible when the build is completed.

While we are on the subject of cables, I decided to change the horrible white fan connectors on the Xigmateks with black ones:

Anyhow, enough of cables x_x

After the drain ports were cut out rather effectively last time I felt all empowered and broke out the holesaw once again for the fillports. This set was more complex, as the only viable location for them meant drilling through the aluminium and the edge of the acrylic. They also had to be in exactly the right place the first time as there is only a 22mm gap between the base of the fillport and the reservoir port. Obviously thats too short for barbs/compressions and would require some kind of sli or connector fitting.

This meant marking the hole locations was absolutely critical, so I started very carefully measuring from the center of the reservoir port to each edge and corner of the case. I then marked it out on the underside of the top panel with masking tape. However I couldn't bring myself to cut the holes because I didn't fully trust the measurements.

I then had another stroke of genius (no really, this time it was actually genius) and worked out a way to measure accurately with a very slim margin of error. My plan was to install a Feser single slot sli connector into the reservoir port and scribble all over the exposed end with permanent marker. It would then be a simple matter of masking up the target area and pressing the top of the case down into position, lifting it off again and admiring my inky ring marking the port position. This worked unbelievably well, but unfortunately I took no pictures of anything until after I finished drilling the holes, anyhow here is the ruined fitting:

You can just about see the black ring of ink around the top of it. This enabled me to drill the following holes:

I chipped the edges of the acrylic here, but nothing too major. The moment of truth:

YAY! I only received the fittings to connect the fillports to the reservoirs today:

Koolance RAM 35 connection fittings. The pictured ones are 14mm Type 2s, I also bought Type 1s just in case, but the above ones work perfectly! I will take pictures of them connected when I am done constantly removing case panels.

I made a cable harness for my power button with LED ring.

To simplify things a little I sleeved the LED and switch cables as two bundles and I am pleased with how it came out.

You may have noticed that in some of the case pictures it is perched on casters, I really really don't like those so I wanted to replace them with static feet. I liked the MNPC Tech billet feet, but eventually ruled them out because they might look too round for a square case. I eventually settled for making my own case feet out of the Mountain Mods acrylic feet. I didn't just want to use a set of them because I don't feel 1/4" is enough lift.

The feet, countersink drill bit, felt, washers, 6-32 screws and locknuts I will be using to make my feet:

The screws planned out:

I initially tried just screwing 3 feet on top of each other as they are advertised with 6-32 threads, however not one of the holes lined up perfectly between feet, resulting in a screwed together mess sort of resemblin the leaning tower of pisa, quite unsuitable for feet. I decided to drill out the screw threads into a straight shaft. This was quite simple and uneventful. I then used the countersink drill bit to sink the holes for a flat standing surface when mounted:

I then mounted them to the case so they were ready for felting:

After applying the felt:

I chose to cut the corners off the felt because I didn't like my uneven scissor skills when corners are involved. This didn't affect how they came out though, they look very nice to me:

Btw, because of the nice diffused lighting this shot shows the actual colour of the case perfectly!

This post is already stupidly long, and I didn't even catch up yet

Oh well, next time folks - Watercooling parts, some initial components (you can see a sneak preview of one part in the koolance fittings picture), mounting of the radiators, mounting of the pumps (did this today) are all still to come!

 

[Verloren]

I would like to start off this post with some pictures of deliveries:

I was originally going to with the P8P67 Pro as a motherboard, but the more I saw the Sabertooth P67, the more I wanted it. Right up until the point I decided the looks were worth the extra 50 bucks and went for it lol.

As such my MOSFETs would have to be watercooled by the EK Sabertooth block:

I really like the overall quality of this piece and EKs packaging is superb! I chose the black top because I was going for a stealthed system.

I cheaped out on the P67 waterblock, but its black and the ports are on the edge to avoid interfering with the gpu's.

Remember that pump mockup from earlier? well that was of the MCP655 (D5 vario) and I decided it was too damn big and ugly :/ I ended up buying 2 MCP355s instead:

All I did when I got the pumps was cut off the useless RPM reporting cable and cut the warranty sticker along the seam joining base and top. I will be putting an EK top on it and mounting them on the Heatsink accessory (mainly for height, however additional cooling can't really hurt). More on that later...

For fittings I had my heart set on matte black bitspower barbs, but Serpantine convinced me to go for compressions (over a period of 2 weeks). I was only hesitant to do so because Bitspower ones are ridiculously expensive... $8.99 each and I need 32! So I shopped around for other brands matte black compressions, but I didn't really like any. The only compressions that caught my eye were the XSPC black chrome ones (admittedly, because of the $3.99 price tag), but I didn't want those because they wouldn't match bitpower matte black rotary angled pieces.

In the end I gave up and ordered an EK compression, bitspower matte black barb, bitspower matte black rotary 45 degree and an xspc compression so I could see them in person. As expected the Bitspower stuff looked pretty amazing, but the retailer accidentally sent me a black sparkle 45 degree rotary instead. This turned out to be a good thing because of how well it matched the xspc compression... I finally had my answer! Its funny because I initially dismissed black sparkle as looking exactly the same as shining silver, but it turned out that retailers are just terrible at taking photographs.

So the fittings plan was set, Bitspower Black Sparkle angles and misc with XSPC compressions (1/2 ID / 3/4 OD). I will now proceed to put retailers black sparkle pictures to shame:

When my 90 degree pieces and the rest of the 45 degree pieces arrive I will do a full fittings picture, it will quite the sea of brass (ETA on this, 2 weeks from now)!

The full fittings plan is as follows:

32x Compressions
8x Rotary 90 degree
6x Rotary 45 degree
4x Fillports (2 Fill, 2 Drain)
2x T Blocks
2x LED Plugs
2x Plugs
2x Temperature Sensors
2x Koolance RAM 35 fittings

All of that will be connecting up the following loops:

Res => Pump => T block => drain port / CPU block => Mosfet => SB => Rad => Res
Res => Pump => T block => Drain / GPU 1 => GPU 2 => Rad => Res

Those of you keeping score will notice that to connect the GPUs in serial I will have 2 Plugs too few and 2 Compressions too many, Yep that's right, I will be going for Parallel flow, not using sli fittings either, real compressions and hose for me (unless its too hard to actually do it come crunch time, then I will default to Bitspower crystal link). I think it will look absolutely amazing with 2 side panel windows and a top panel window!

Anyhow before I get too excited just thinking about it, on to more mundane deliveries:

The velcro that comes with cathodes and such is way too useless to stay stuck to my textured powder coat (as evidenced by my cathodes falling off the ceiling of my case 3 nights in a row) so I bought this industrial strength stuff (and now its extremely hard to deliberately peel this stuff off):

I also happened to see these snazzy red bolts, at $0.50 each I should have passed them up, but **** it, they look too nice:

I came out with 28 of them, I am not sure how visible these will even be when in place (right now, the only plan for them is the 7 expansion slots).

I got standard fan grills for this case, because I didn't want it to be any more obnoxious than it already is:

That is a stack of 16 Fan grills, I will explain that overly large number in a later post.

To accommodate my anti vibration material (the thermochill gaskets basically), case wall, fan grill, 25mm fan shroud, 25mm fan I needed 2.5" screws to mount my radiators (I will be using a pull configuration):

That is all for now as I have made Mrs Verloren wait long enough to be getting glared at (we have plans to go out). So later today I will be posting pictures of the preliminary cable managment, radiator mounting, pump mounting and the first component delivery. Then we will finally be caught up!

 

[Verloren]

Lets start with the not so pretty. This is a picture of the front panel cable management in its current form:

The cable mess... err.. management between the 5.25" bays. This is the best most invisible spot to hide cables in a mostly see through box. I will probably make a cover for this section out of modders mesh or something to obscure the view of the cables.

The following picture shows my best efforts with the front panel headers:

The routing of the front panel cables, this is about as neat as I can make it without using extremely long extension cables to route them down the front, across the base, up the motherboard brace, along the underside of the motherboard tray and up into position. You can also see one UV cathode and the routing of its power cables.

It was at this point that I flushed my radiators. I started with a boiled distilled water and white distilled vinegar solution and followed that with distilled water. It took a gallon and a bit per rad to get it perfectly clear. I then affixed some rad grills to the inside portion of the rads:

Installed 6 fan grills on the inside of the radiators. This may seem redundant (and frankly, it probably is), but my justification is protection. Both for the radator fins and my hands when working in the area near the rads (pumps, cables, tubing etc).

The next step was to mount the radiators:

The row of grills for the GPU rad are in place, just look at the length of those screws... totally insane!

Inserting the fans onto the screws and against the vibration dampening material. This was harder than it looks/sounds because the 15mm fan spacing doesn't leave enough space for the cables to go between the fans and this orientation has the cables coming out the sides

Showing the fan shrouds in place, this really brought home how massive the radiator assembly was going to be!

Look at the size of that assembly! It sticks out almost 5" into the case!

Both radiators installed (top is CPU, will be plumbed to the right hand reservoir, bottom is GPU and paired with the left reservoir).

Both installed rads from the inside. Notice the opposite orientation of each rad. This was deliberate for the purpose of minimizing tubing length.

A profile of the front with both rads installed. I like the look of the simple grills, also (rather surprisingly) I don't mind the silver screw heads.

This is how the radiator fans look like spinning. That red dot between two fans is where a screw is missing (the retailer only sent 23 of 24 screws :/ ), however this has since been rectified.

The obligatory night shot:

Anyhow, onto yesterdays progress!

I wanted to mount the pumps next because my EK tops came through:

As usual I am really impressed with the EK packaging, but not the product so much this time as there are some visible imperfections on the milled surface of the tops :/

The first task is obviously to take the stock top off the pump:

And then mount the new ones:

You may notice I flipped the orientation of the one of the pump bases, this was so the cables would be poking out of the sides between each pump. The reason for this will become apparent later.

I assembled the MCP35X heatsinks next:

And put the thermal pads on the bottom of the pumps:

.

And the final part of the pump assemblies was to mount the pumps to the heatsinks:

I had already drilled the holes necessary to mount the heatsinks in the bottom of the case:

After I fitted both pumps to the case:

While they were there, I wanted to see what they look like with the fittings I planned (the far pump was supposed to have 2x 45 degree pieces, but I still need to order the last few 45 degree pieces).

And to take it a step further, I couldn't resist popping the end of some tubing onto the far pump to make sure the tubing clears the SSD caddy and makes it to the drain port nicely:

The final picture I have for you guys currently is of components and tubing:

In this picture is my new Sabertooth P67 motherboard (I took this out of the box to see it for myself, and I can confirm, sexiest. motherboard. ever.), the i7-2600k (if anyone here keeps score here is its info: Batch number: 3110B473 Wafer: 1112, made in Costa Rica), an EK true backplate for 1155/1156 motherboards, 2 retail packs of 10' Primochill Primoflex Clear 1/2ID 3/4OD tubing, and some Indigo Extreme TIM (I was originally going to use my Shin-Etsu X23-7783D, but I thought why not go for the best!).

This now means the thread has caught up with the current build progress!

BONUS picture:

I couldn't resist... lol.

 

[Verloren]

On a completely unrelated note, just finished Bastion - it is totally awesome!

 

[Verloren]

This is looking great. Can't wait to see the pipe work and fittings connected





whats that then?

Thanks, believe me, I can't wait either!

Bastion is an action rpg released recently: http://supergiantgames.com/?page_id=242.

 

[Verloren]

@danbt: Thanks! I am not sure my wallet agrees with that though (especially after tonight lol).

@greyfox591: Thanks! Yea, I really love the case, its build quality is fantastic and the finish is of superb quality. It really is absolutely stunning. Also very durable - I haven't been all that gentle with the panels and such and there are not paint scratches to speak of on any of them, pretty good stuff!

Anyhow, I don't have any pictures to upload tonight as there hasn't been any real progress.

I disassembled my current build enough to extract the power supply (not easy when the cables were meticulously routed) and test fit it into the UFO to try out cable routing ideas. Man its hard to hide cables when both side panels and the top have windows!

I eventually came up with a plan though, however I found that nearly all the main power cables are all too short to reach their marks So I took this as a good excuse to place an order for some Bitfenix Alchemy extensions I ended up ordering:

1x Black 24-pin ATX
1x Black 8-pin EPS
1x Black 8-pin PCI-e
1x Red 8-pin PCI-e
2x Black 6-pin PCI-e

You may find the one red cable odd (well frankly so do I), but as I was adding the cables to the cart I had a rather stupid idea to order one red cable and take it apart to add red accent cables to all of the black ones (except ATX) and use the removed black wires to rebuild the mutilated 8-pin cable. This is might be hard to understand from my rather bad explanation (forgive me for that, I am really tired at the moment), but hopefully it will work so I can show you in picture form.

I also wanted to order my sound card and SSDs today as they were on sale at my preferred retailer ($69.99 for a 60GB Agility 3 - how can you say no?), but I ended up getting carried away and ordered:

1x Creative Titanium Fatal1ty Professional
1x 60GB OCZ Agility 3
1x 120GB OCZ Vertex 3
1x 2TB Seagate Barracuda Green
1x 16GB Corsair Vengeance Kit
2x Asus HD6970

You may notice that the GPUs go above my initial component plan, there were two reasons for this, the first of which was wanting to use reference design full cover EK waterblocks for the cards (there are no reference 6950s on sale at my preferred retailer at all) and secondly greed - I know I would regret not going for the 6970s somewhere down the line. I am honestly not sure which of those was the main factor (probably the second though), but now I am left with way way too much graphical horsepower for my current 24" 1920x1200 screen. To make the 6970s seem more worth it, I am going to need an upgrade! I'm thinking Eyefinity...

Oh and also I changed my mind on another aspect of the build. I no longer want a stealthed look to the waterblocks, which is a shame as I now need to either buy a new mosfet block or just get a new top for it from EK. I already bought a new chipset block which arrived today, and I must say I am pleased with the new look.

I will be uploading more pictures when the components come through, should be exciting! I probably should get the case into a more usable condition so I can test out all this new hardware

 

[Verloren]

A component package did come though, but the one containing the 2TB Barracuda and the 2 6970s isn't due until Monday

However I did take pictures of the current lot:

The new chipset block out of the box:

This one will be used in place of that ugly black one I had previously purchased (pictured in a previous post).

I was impatient so I mounted the SSDs to their fan mount:

In preparation for enough components arriving to start up this build on air, I decided to finish mounting the fans into the case. I started with the 3 fans on the top panel:

The view from the top:

I also routed the cables for 2 of those fans (I didn't do the 3rd one because it is going to be paired with the one on the motherboard tray and requires some more thought):

After that I moved onto the bottom fans. These ones are also the HDD and SSD mounts. First I had to remove the SSD and HDD brackets from the fans and mount push them onto the nice black bolts:

And then remount the SSDs and HDD bracket (The HDD bracket will have the Barracuda and an old 160GB drive I have lying around (this one will be used to run OSX in a VM)).

I think I may swap the agility and the vertex around, so the prettier vertex is on top.

After this I did the motherboard tray fan and pushed it into place:

I really don't like that green label...

and now a photo of the current case rear:

There is still a lot to do, but I can't do much more until I buy the fan controller (Lamptron FC Touch).

 

[Verloren]

Just a quick update, I have ordered all the rest of the parts I need to get this build running and under water.

I have also readied the system for air stress testing (with the intel stock cooler ) in preperation for GPU arrival (which will be tomorrow now because UPS claimed hurricane related delays ).

Anyhow, pictures of it running on air shortly.

 

[Verloren]

WOOT the GPUs arrived! Also the Barracuda and some of the Bitfenix extensions (they forgot to send 2 black 6pin PCI-e extensions ).

My original plan was going to be install the cards and power her up, but I decided to wait until after I install my fan controller (the next couple of days).

Anyhow, some pictures are below, I will upload more pictures tomorrow when I can be bothered to downsize them, too tired at the moment.

2TB Barracuda Green

1x 24pin, 1x EPS 8pin, 2x PCI-e 8pin (one red, one black) extensions

2 HD6970s, the boxes alone are huge as you can tell by looking at the 24" 16:10 monitor behind the cards

I decided to modify the Bitfenx extensions a bit as illustrated below, but I can't finish until I get the 2 6pin PCI-e's I am owed

I think they are coming out well!

Anyhow, I'm off to bed now...

 

[Verloren]

Thanks for all the kind comments guys! I apologize for the lack of updates, but I will be back with pictures on the 6th.

I have put it all together very roughly for some air cooled testing and I am happy to say it's gone well... Well mostly anyhow.

The Bitfenix extensions I was missing have arrived and I have finished making them all black and red. They do look awesome as you guys attest, however my wife pointed out something so obvious I can't believe I missed it - I will be taking the stock GPU cooling off so the cables will no longer match the GPUs!

Running the machine on air has showed me that I may have over estimated the capabilities of the Lamptron FC Touch. I have 2 fans attached to each channel with a Y splitter, however the LEDs on them are less bright than a fan connected via Molex and the airflow feels significantly reduced. Whether this is a faulty Fan Controller or 30W per channel isn't enough to power 2 LED 120mm fans (surely it is...) is yet to be determined.

I also managed to create a thermal shutdown after using the automatic over clock available in the EFI BIOS, this was because of the stock cooler I'm sure, but I really don't know why I even tried an over OC yet - just impatient I guess!

Anyhow, I will be taking it all apart again tomorrow, during which I will be testing the fan controller thoroughly and installing the water cooling (the 2 GPU blocks, the CPU block and the rest of my rotary 45 degree fittings are due to arrive tomorrow) as I booked the next two days off work to really crack on with this build.

I am also expecting to receive a custom etched acrylic PSU blank tomorrow. The image for which was drawn by my wife in Illustrator in about 10 minutes, I think it will work well, and will finally represent the projects name. Below is the image my wife created:

Anyhow I will be back tomorrow with pictures!

 

[Verloren]

This post should contain my usual amount of pictures for the air version of the build, but it didn't interest me so all I ended up taking was this:

And this:

My original plan was to have the case under the desk where my old Antec 1200 currently is... but when I tried it its sheer bulk really ruined my comfortable seating position

I got my block delivery yesterday (group block picture forthcoming - CF card space ran out and I was too lazy to fetch a new card) and I only had enough self control to play some BC2 for a couple of hours before I had to rip apart the PC to start the water cooling conversion. Plus, 6970s in crossfire... loudest setup I have ever heard.

Anyhow, on to the first victim:

Yes, I did notice that I forgot to cut a thermal pad for that component in the upper right of the card before I placed the block on. Cutting and placing the thermal pads is really really tedious work...

I think EK's backplate mounting instructions are wrong, it says to use the 12mm screws for the central 3 holes, but when I tried they just ending up spinning the GPU standoffs and sticking out by 2mm. So Ignored it and reversed the instructions.

It was at this point that I realised the backplate wasn't designed for horizontal motherboards so the EK branding will be back to front and the FC6970 will be upside down

The GPU before conversion:

And after:

I was worried that the XSPC compression's wouldn't fit over the backplate (because they have no clearance), but this turned out to be unfounded... just!

Anyhow, time to take the whole thing apart, mount the water blocks, tube up, fill, bleed, leak test, reflow the indigo extreme and the post another update here. Its all moving along now!

 

[Verloren]

This was supposed to be my post of triumph, sadly though, this isn't that post

I started work yesterday, stripping everything down, and blocking everything back up. I modded my Thermal Armour (well cut and filed great chunks out of it) and started tubing up. It was at this point I hit a few snags.

First things first though, pictures (or else you guys won't stick around lol ).

First thing I did was put my waterblock on the second gpu, but seeing as there are pictures of the first GPU above, I saw little point in doubling them up. Next thing was to strip the motherboard down and fit the EK true backplate:

This was pretty simple, but I noticed my EK Supreme HF didn't come with the easy mount system, so I had to use the hugely ugly screws of sheer ugliness... wait a minute! *disappears* ............ 2 minutes later ............ OK, ordered an easy mount kit!

Next I wanted to fit the Mosfet block, behold the nude MOSFETs:

With the waterblock fitted:

You may notice that the block isn't the same one I posted ages ago, this is because I changed my mind and now wanted to show off the liquid instead of hide it all in a stealthed system. Lesson learned: don't be too hasty when buying parts - it costs you more money in the long run!

Becaue I want my entire motherboard watercooled I need to fit a Southbridge block, for this I fitted my EK one (sorry no pics of the naked P67, I wanted to preserve its modesty [actually I forgot to take a picture, I was too busy laughing at is pea sized figure that was attached to a heat sink many many times bigger than it is])

You may notice that I didn't use my black top SB block, so I now have a spare Sabertooth P67 MOSFET and a spare P67 compatible chipset waterblock.

I then placed the Indigo Extreme on the CPU and followed it with the waterblock. Sorry about the lack of pictures, applying the Indigo Extreme required too much concentration I clean forgot to take pictures.

But you can just about see an edge of it there!

With that, my motherboard is all blocked up, as the below picture shows:

The chipset block is slightly skewed, because thats the only way it fits in!

I knew that the Thermal Armour was not going to fit anymore, but I bought this motherboard for its looks... so I can't let that go. The armour must fit no matter what so 5 year VIP warranty be damned, I'm cutting it up!

The below pictures show the extent of the water block conflicts:

Thats a lot of cutting! I was so focused on cutting into it without the right tools and without damaging the areas of the armour I wanted to keep that I took no pictures during this time. Helpful hint: do not cut away at the plastic with tin snips and wire cutters and expect to get a nice clean edge. I ended up having to run out and buy a couple of hand files to get some cleaner edges. Sorry for the lack of pictures :/

I was then ready to start tubing bits up, so I took the fittings picture I promised you guys ages ago:

Included in that picture is:
32 1/2-3/4" XSPC Compressions
8 Bitspower black sparkle 90 degree rotaries
7 Bitspower black sparkle 45 degree rotaries
2 Bitspower black sparkle T Blocks
2 Bitspower black sparkle plugs
2 Koolance RAM-35 Type 2 fittings

The following picture shows what the motherboard tray looks like in its present state:

I had originally planned to have the SB block inlet be a 45degree fitting, however when I tried that the tube ended up resting against the parallel flow crossfire tubing, which I really didn't like. So I took one of the 90 degree pieces and tried that instead, now the tube runs directly up between the crossfire tubing and bridge, touching nothing - which to me looks better. Unfortunately this move was the cause of my first (and worst) snag. More on that later. You may also notice that the CPU outlet and MOSFET inlet are not aligned - this is my second snag.

I decided to tube up the main loop's reservoir while I stewed over my now imminent delays.

and then I connected the GPU loop's reservoir to its pump inlet. This tube had to be longer, and doesn't look as good as the other tubing, but nothing I can do about that.

Unfortunately this is all I could do as I no longer have enough 90 degree pieces to tube up the GPU reservoir. Here is what all the reservoir tubing looks like in its current state:

I was quite disheartened by now, as I really wanted to finish it all up. But there is a silver lining to these delays.

During the air testing, I began noticing my PSU (Antec TPQ-1000) has developed a weird fan noise, which is generally irritating to me when not wearing my headphones (or getting drowned out by the angry vacuum cleaners formally known as 6970 stock coolers), so I ordered a new 80mm fan to replace it with. If I had tubed everything up I would have to drain at least the GPU loop to be able to remove the PSU to do this maintenance.

I measured the misalignment of the CPU outlet and MOSFET inlet to be 9mm, thats an odd number, so I ordered a 10mm extender - it should be possible to compensate for the 1mm difference with the tubing. I did try to order my last 90 degree fitting, but its out of stock everywhere, and the ETA for it to be back in stock is 7-10 days .

I guess I will use that time to fix the PSU, change the CPU block mounting mechanism and do all the cable management... *sigh*

 

[Verloren]

@RollerBall - The sleeving is a high density nylon. Its got a cloth feel to it, very similar to Bitfenix Extensions. It looks much nicer than the plastic sleeve as it isn't reflective, but it is a little pricey :/

 

[Verloren]

Ok, everything is tubed up, leak tested and is in the process of bleeding. There is an issue with bleeding at the moment, but more on that later.

First things first, the pictures!

Remember the horrible cable mess in the last post? well its been relocated:

In this position it will all be hidden by the motherboard tray... thankfully. I didn't sleeve every PSU cable because I decided I will upgrade my PSU early next year, so I am saving the rest of my sleeving for that.

I had already pre cut the lengths of tubing required to finish the job while waiting for parts to come back in stock hence the labels you see on the tubing in the next picture (also notice the long hideous screws are replaced with the nice easy mount system... so much prettier):

Before I inserted the motherboard tray, I connected the pumps to the T-blocks and the T-blocks to the drain ports:

This is what it looks like from the left side panel now that the cables are 'managed' (I use that term loosely) and everything bar the motherboard tray is tubed up:

I inserted the motherboard tray and conencted the GPUs to the their radiator next (sorry for the drop in picture quality, I was starting to get excited and just rushed the pictures):

and then I tubed up the right hand side.

The final step prior to filling and leak testing was to place the top of the case back on (which connects the fillports to the reservoirs via the RAM fittings), here is a totally pointless, really bad picture of that connection:

Finally, its time to break out the Bounty!

I stopped taking pictures of the 'bountifying' here, because after 'bountification' of the GPU loop it just looked like a Bounty wonderland.

I started by filling the CPU loop first, which was obviously very exciting, and you know... taking pictures just isn't...

Anyhow after filling I just left the CPU pump going while I ate dinner with the wife and watched the 2 hour Hells Kitchen finale (priorities... ).

After all that I filled the GPU loop and remembered the camera existed!

You will probably notice how the left hand side reservoir (the GPU loop) looks like a badly poured beer.. well thats exactly how it is, and still is even after my best attempts at bleeding it (this is a common theme across the whole loop as you will see in the pictures) . The CPU loop bleeding was coming along really nicely by this time though!

Now some miscellaneous 'debountified' (mostly) pictures:

That last picture is to really highlight the difference in consistency between the two loops. Quite horrible really .

I even tilted the case in all directions (this thing is ridiculously heavy) to try and fix the frothiness which worked, I had huge air bubbles moving around the loop and escaping to the reservoir which dropped the liquid level down to that of the CPU loop (how I want it at the moment) and the loop looked really nice. But pretty much as soon as I turn the pump on again, the frothiness comes back and the liquid level rises massively (and if I leave it long enough with the fillport open, it starts to overspill slightly - quite ridiculous really when the reservoir is actually only 3/4 full).

My first thought was maybe its sucking in air from somewhere, but surely if there was a gap like that I would have a slow leak (leaving it off all last night produced no puddles in the case), which leaves me suspecting the parallel flow I would welcome any ideas on this, I really want to keep the loop design.