Project: Obsidiswap

Guitarman0 · 25 Jun 2011 at 13:00

Sorry for the unimaginative name, I just can't think of anything else at the moment

.

O.k. so back in January I decided to watercool my Lancool K62 rig (Project: Cool Dragon) and I had a bit of a nightmare. Leaks all over the place and broken 5850. Also, when I fired up the rig, I had the GPU temps I wanted but my CPU temps were actually higher than my Venomous-X I had had before :eek:

Therefore I have learned from my mistakes and have put my partial failure down to a few things. 1) I rushed it. I tried to do the whole thing on my own in 1 day and for a first time watercooler this was a bad move. 2) Lack of research. I thought a 280 slim rad would be fine for a CPU and GPU....I was wrong

Also in order to use a bigger rad I would either mount it externally or buy a new case. I opted for the latter as I want a clean looking exterior.

Anyway, I did some thinking and earned a bit of money and have bought the following:

Corsair 800D (thanks to BringTheRain in the MM)

1x Black 1/2" compression fitting

3m White XPSC 1/2" tubing

2x black bitfenix 6 pin PCIe extensions

XSPC RX360 radiator

3x Scythe Gentle Typhoon 1850rpm

1x Silver Kill Coil

EK Multioption 250 Reservoir V2 Advanced

XSPC acetal pump top V3

LED Cap (basically a 1/4" plug but with space for an LED so I can use it in the res)

9x 45 Degree black 1/2" compression fittings

1x EK Anti-cyclon

PSU bridge Fpug (for jumpstarting the PSU as I find the paper clip really annoying

)

8mm Tubing (for draining my current system)

CPU Backplate (my EK block never came with one so I have made do with my custom one. This was cheap so I though I might as well throw it in to my order )

90 degree 1/2" compression fitting.

This will be used with my EK Plexi Copper 5850 full cover block, my Laing DDC-1T and my EK Supreme LT AMD CPU block.

I will most likely start ripping my PC apart this weekend but here are some pics to get this going

Lotsa Compressions

XSPC RX360 and my 2850rpm Gentle Typhoons

DWorrall · 25 Jun 2011 at 13:31

Good luck

. 800D isn't a case im fond of but its still a nice case.

I don't like the fact that there's VERY bad airflow.

tidusjar · 25 Jun 2011 at 13:51

Nice, can't wait to see the final outcome!

DWorrall said:
Good luck . 800D isn't a case im fond of but its still a nice case.

I don't like the fact that there's VERY bad airflow.

I think thats why he's watercooling

Guitarman0 · 25 Jun 2011 at 14:24

DWorrall said:
Good luck .

Thanks

tidusjar said:
I think thats why he's watercooling

Exactly

Anyway, very small update.

I have flushed the rad. Took 8 flushes and 2L of distilled water.

Beast of a rad :cool:

Done (please ignore the gun parts in the back, my younger brother is in the process of spray painting his toy guns lol)

DWorrall · 25 Jun 2011 at 14:32

tidusjar said:
Nice, can't wait to see the final outcome!

I think thats why he's watercooling

You still need airflow for water-cooling lmao

.

Guitarman0 · 25 Jun 2011 at 14:35

DWorrall said:
You still need airflow for water-cooling lmao .

For watercooling this case is difficult to beat. Airflow is poor through the mid section of the case but I will have 3 scythe gentle typhoons drawing cool air across the rad and then a Noiseblocker PK-3 at the back removing the hot air so airflow won't be a problem. Also I will change the bottom 140mm fan to another Noiseblocker PK-3.

Scon · 25 Jun 2011 at 14:44

Very nice, am starting a similar (ish) project myself next week. Going to try and get 2x 480mm rads and a 120mm rad in there

All fitted internaly.

tidusjar · 25 Jun 2011 at 15:21

Guitarman0 said:
For watercooling this case is difficult to beat. Airflow is poor through the mid section of the case but I will have 3 scythe gentle typhoons drawing cool air across the rad and then a Noiseblocker PK-3 at the back removing the hot air so airflow won't be a problem. Also I will change the bottom 140mm fan to another Noiseblocker PK-3.

^ This.

Sgt Tackleberry · 26 Jun 2011 at 12:00

Nice. You will love doing going from the K62 to the 800d, when I did I was shocked on how much better it was.
The only problem I found was the airflow to keep the ram and board cool but adding some fans really helped.

Good luck with it

N00bbuilder79 · 26 Jun 2011 at 14:03

I'm thinking about getting an 800D, watching this one.

Guitarman0 · 26 Jun 2011 at 14:46

Update

This is what my rig looks like at the moment....

I stripped out as much as I could before draining just incase

Ready to drain

Drained

Empty K62

To drain I used a new method. I bought some really small tubing (8mm I think) and basically put one end over the nozzle of a bottle, squezed the bottle, then put the other end in the res. The suction power sucked the water out

This method was a lot easier than what I did last time (tip the case all over the place lol).

More to come.....

SGWills · 26 Jun 2011 at 15:15

i bought a pump that is used to draw oil out of a car, it cost me a whopping £7 about 1-2 years ago but its handy as hell as i can chuck the tube in the res , turn it on and the system is drained in 5-10 mins

Guitarman0 · 26 Jun 2011 at 18:04

Final update for today:

Components

My CPU block was disgusting so I took it apart and gave it a clean. Sorry for the awful photo!
P.s. this photos was taken before cleaning.

Gotta love EK packaging

Fitted

I build a loop with the rad, pump and CPU block to test for leaks. I had no leaks

But on the down side, I have turned my dining room into a bomb site lol

More updates tomorrow

Sgt Tackleberry · 26 Jun 2011 at 19:19

Looking good m8..

Guitarman0 · 27 Jun 2011 at 13:06

Update:

I installed the new backplate and got the TIM on the CPU

Waterblock fitted

Rad, gentle typhoons and noiseblockers fitted

Mobo and fan controller fitted

More to come...

Sgt Tackleberry · 27 Jun 2011 at 18:57

Looking good

Guitarman0 · 27 Jun 2011 at 21:07

Sgt Tackleberry said:
Looking good

Thanks

Update:

I opened the res

Fitting the anti-cyclone and silver kill coil

The EATX holes were too small to pass the res mounting screws through so I made them a little larger with my new screwdriver drill lol

These are the two bitfenix alchemy GPU extensions I am using. They are brilliant! No heatshrink can be seen nor cable colours. Also, the braid is more of a cloth braid than a plastic one so in my opinion it looks less tacky

I have mounted my cathodes out of view up by the rad. I will probably change these out for LED strips in the future. If you look at the top of the res you can also see my LED which goes into the clear blanking cap I have at the top of the res. This will give the water a nice blue glow hopefully

So here we are at the end of today. Unfortunately the res doesn't quite hang straight due to the EATX holes being misaligned but I really don't fancy drilling a new hole and potentially wreck the case so I am going to leave it for now.

I had a go at the cable management. Round the front I think it looks good. It is a mess round the back but I had to keep a section as clear as possible for routing tubing round the back.

I am having to use these horrible orange sata cables at the moment as I have nothing else. Does anyone have any black SATA-II or SATA-III cables with one end right angled spare?

More updates tomorrow

Evoss · 27 Jun 2011 at 21:11

Looks like a great build. Going well.

engstrom0304 · 29 Jun 2011 at 17:11

Looking very good!! Will be watching this closely!

hyperst · 29 Jun 2011 at 17:16

looking good, to get round the res not being straight, you could use these http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=WC-093-EK&groupid=962&catid=1534&subcat= they work well as i have mine mounted with these.