Project: Omega [56k warning]
- Thread starter JonJ678
- Start date
Associate
- Joined
- 24 Feb 2009
- Posts
- 1,758
- Location
- Teesside
He kinda already answered this.
The easier option tends to be the more boring option too
Plus his PSU will cope with decent graphics cards and such, passive PSU's tend to have quite a low current and arnt good for high power cards.And I dont think that water block is cooling the HDD, its for the graphics card, just happens to be sitting in front of a hard drive... I think lol
Jon doesn't your 10w DDC have the rpm sensor wire fitted to it mate?
If so then you will be able to tell from the speed the impeller is spinning at as to whether the mod worked or not.
I can't remember exactly how fast they should spin at 18w but it's around 4000+ rpm.
You said you're needing more molex connectors?
Male or female?
Might have some lying around if you need them?
If so then you will be able to tell from the speed the impeller is spinning at as to whether the mod worked or not.
I can't remember exactly how fast they should spin at 18w but it's around 4000+ rpm.
You said you're needing more molex connectors?
Male or female?
Might have some lying around if you need them?
Cheers setter. Flycutting is awesome, but clamping a processor without cracking it would be basically impossible. It took me a good three hours to lap the damned i7 by hand. The heatspreader wasn't even remotely flat beforehand. Still, liquid metal wets clean, lapped copper beautifully and is presently attempting to solder my processor to the waterblock. I don't really need a fan controller, was more looking for an excuse to buy a soldering iron. Thanks for the offer though.
Watercooling the psu is doing my head in a bit. Third electric shock so far, much less uncomfortable than the previous two though. Not recommended, but if I succeed, I should have 64A available at low noise, and that's a rare thing. DuckySpud is right, the block is for a gpu, it's just leaning against a hard drive.
THe mod was definitely a failure I'm afraid DavyBoy, I butchered a molex to 3 pin adapter and used that to wire a multimeter in series with the pump. Current readings confirmed it's still 10W. That said, it's still running, so not all bad. I'll probably put it in another computer.
Cheers for the offer of a molex, but it's cheaper to buy a plug than to post one I think. Don't need any wires attached to it so I'll just get another one from the high street for about a quid. Ridiculously expensive way of buying a fan controller, but it's left me with a soldering iron
Took few photos of the lapping and none of the liquid metal, setting up the gpus and cpu for leak testing now. Plugging the bleed hole in the radiator with epoxy didn't work unfortunately, need to think again with that one. Pretty sure it'll be a success for the waterblock though, so half marks for that. I'll get photos up sometime tonight.
Cheers all
Watercooling the psu is doing my head in a bit. Third electric shock so far, much less uncomfortable than the previous two though. Not recommended, but if I succeed, I should have 64A available at low noise, and that's a rare thing. DuckySpud is right, the block is for a gpu, it's just leaning against a hard drive.
THe mod was definitely a failure I'm afraid DavyBoy, I butchered a molex to 3 pin adapter and used that to wire a multimeter in series with the pump. Current readings confirmed it's still 10W. That said, it's still running, so not all bad. I'll probably put it in another computer.
Cheers for the offer of a molex, but it's cheaper to buy a plug than to post one I think. Don't need any wires attached to it so I'll just get another one from the high street for about a quid. Ridiculously expensive way of buying a fan controller, but it's left me with a soldering iron
Took few photos of the lapping and none of the liquid metal, setting up the gpus and cpu for leak testing now. Plugging the bleed hole in the radiator with epoxy didn't work unfortunately, need to think again with that one. Pretty sure it'll be a success for the waterblock though, so half marks for that. I'll get photos up sometime tonight.
Cheers all
You're a good man, but I'm alright really. I've got some feser bleed screws, the problem was the screw itself fouling the case. The radiator fits fine with the screw removed but then leaks. I should probably have started off with a grub screw, worst case scenario is going to feature me drilling out the epoxy, retapping and putting a grub screw in. Hoping to avoid this though. The molex plug is to solder wires onto for the second half of the fan controller, so I only need one, and it'll be with me sooner if I fetch it from town.
Did I ever reply to your email about folding at home? I'm sure I sent an email to someone about it but can't seem to find it in my outbox.
It lives! Now posting from the computer this build focuses on. I've decided my best shot with the psu is to connect the waterblock with a short closed loop and then stress the psu to see if the water in the closed loop gets hot. If it does, despite the pvc tape, then it's worth putting the psu in the loop. If it doesn't, back to the drawing board. Going to fire up linx and take the cpu up to 70ish, then leave it there for half an hour, turn off and leak test overnight. I'll get photos up in the morning, too late to bother with now.
Did I ever reply to your email about folding at home? I'm sure I sent an email to someone about it but can't seem to find it in my outbox.
It lives! Now posting from the computer this build focuses on. I've decided my best shot with the psu is to connect the waterblock with a short closed loop and then stress the psu to see if the water in the closed loop gets hot. If it does, despite the pvc tape, then it's worth putting the psu in the loop. If it doesn't, back to the drawing board. Going to fire up linx and take the cpu up to 70ish, then leave it there for half an hour, turn off and leak test overnight. I'll get photos up in the morning, too late to bother with now.
Last edited:
Ah, I got you now mate, I thought you'd lost the screw and that's why you were trying to fill the hole up..
I never did get a reply back from you regarding F@H, I was running ubuntu 9.10 for a while, but I gave up with it in the end as I couldn't even get CS:S to run properly with Wine!!!
Is it true that it's actually better to fold under window now?
I read someones post on here the other week where they had said this.
My main rig is currently in pieces, having some work done to my case, my PSU is in RMA atm, so I'm stuck bouncing between an old Athlon dual core rig and my partners i7 system which is doing my head in, I hate not having my own rig!!
Though I've got a whole stack of new gear for my loop that's just sitting waiting to be rebuilt, so I'm really looking forward to starting that!
I'm still interested in using my rig for folding though, so if you find yourself with some spare time on your hands I'd appreciate it if you could point me in the right direction, though by the looks of things you've got a lot of stuff going on yourself atm, so there really isn't any rush mate.
You certainly don't do things in halfs Jon, it's good to see folk doing out of the ordinary stuff with hardware, I find it really interesting following threads like this.
I never did get a reply back from you regarding F@H, I was running ubuntu 9.10 for a while, but I gave up with it in the end as I couldn't even get CS:S to run properly with Wine!!!
Is it true that it's actually better to fold under window now?
I read someones post on here the other week where they had said this.
My main rig is currently in pieces, having some work done to my case, my PSU is in RMA atm, so I'm stuck bouncing between an old Athlon dual core rig and my partners i7 system which is doing my head in, I hate not having my own rig!!
Though I've got a whole stack of new gear for my loop that's just sitting waiting to be rebuilt, so I'm really looking forward to starting that!
I'm still interested in using my rig for folding though, so if you find yourself with some spare time on your hands I'd appreciate it if you could point me in the right direction, though by the looks of things you've got a lot of stuff going on yourself atm, so there really isn't any rush mate.
You certainly don't do things in halfs Jon, it's good to see folk doing out of the ordinary stuff with hardware, I find it really interesting following threads like this.
Haha, glad I stummbled across this Jon. Some pretty interesting work going on.
Flycutting the cooler base was something I had considered as I didnt trust myself to lap it that well - but I thought I would have to do the IHS too to see the real benefits.
As for adding the PSU into the loop - Im interested to see where you get with it. Certainly some new ground.
Flycutting the cooler base was something I had considered as I didnt trust myself to lap it that well - but I thought I would have to do the IHS too to see the real benefits.
As for adding the PSU into the loop - Im interested to see where you get with it. Certainly some new ground.
Damn, I'm sorry about that Dave. I'm afraid my knowledge is a bit out of date at present, they've rolled out loads of bonus point schemes which have left me a little bewildered. I believe smp (symmetric multi processing) on windows is finally working well, it ran terribly for a long time. Running it on ubuntu is as simple as downloading the fah6 file from Stanfords website, navigating to it in the teminal (cd is change directory, ls is list directory, cd .. will go back a step) and then typing ./fah6 -smp 8. It'll ask you a few questions (ocuk is team number 10) then start running. It'll throw a hissy fit if you reboot though, which is where the finstall script described in the sticky on here comes in.
GPU folding on linux is difficult and temperamental, gpu folding on windows is trivial as far as I know. If you've got an nvidia card or two you can get many points from this. Gaming on linux, at the risk of being unfair to wine, doesn't work yet
Hopefully smp works under vista/7 now and many, many more people will start folding. Running linux 24/7 counts as quite hardcore, I don't manage this much as I'd like to.
Sorry to hear your rigs in bits, but at least your partner has an i7 system so it could be much worse.
@BIGBC flycutting is brilliant, astonishingly straightforward if a little difficult to clamp. Yet to find out if it made much difference, should be overclocking shortly.
Oh, an update to this thread too. I've been leak testing for ages, 120mm radiator is finally sealed, both 8800gt's are connected up to the cpu and watercooled.
Sli is active much to my excitement, both cards flashed to stock speed fx3700s. Should get at least 700 core out of both of them, hopefully 750mhz stable. Processor hasn't died yet, so I'm assuming no liquid metal has made it anywhere it shouldn't. Still going to run the board horizontal for a while just in case.
Using a single san ace at 12V, two cards at stock speeds, i7 at stock speeds, I'm getting ibt + furmark load temps of 60 degrees on the processor and 45 on the graphics cards. Not great, but not a bad effort for a single fan and I've got hot air coming out of a psu which is good news in terms of testing the waterblock on it. No more photos as I don't feel I've done anything particularly worth photographing today yet, leak testing and flashing gpus took quite a while.
Radiators are earthed, psu connected directly to radiators. So no harmful ac is going to make it to my processor. Going to put some more earthing wires in place in the interests of redundancy. The barbs sticking out of the psu are very definitely not earthed, despite two layers of pvc tape. I'm inclined to guess that currents are being induced in the base of the waterblock by the varying ac in the copper plate below, I'd like to consider these to be harmless eddy currents so I'm trying to find the courage to touch a barb which I know is live to see if it hurts or not. Multimeter can't cope with the voltage at the barb, it's guessing any number it can think of. Sampling errors I guess. As it stands I believe the barbs to be completely isolated from the psu casing, and the voltages in the copper base of the block to be indirect (can't imagine the tape has failed completely, though it doesn't like compression). Think I'm going to post in GH asking for a sparky
GPU folding on linux is difficult and temperamental, gpu folding on windows is trivial as far as I know. If you've got an nvidia card or two you can get many points from this. Gaming on linux, at the risk of being unfair to wine, doesn't work yet
Hopefully smp works under vista/7 now and many, many more people will start folding. Running linux 24/7 counts as quite hardcore, I don't manage this much as I'd like to.
Sorry to hear your rigs in bits, but at least your partner has an i7 system so it could be much worse.
@BIGBC flycutting is brilliant, astonishingly straightforward if a little difficult to clamp. Yet to find out if it made much difference, should be overclocking shortly.
Oh, an update to this thread too. I've been leak testing for ages, 120mm radiator is finally sealed, both 8800gt's are connected up to the cpu and watercooled.
Sli is active much to my excitement, both cards flashed to stock speed fx3700s. Should get at least 700 core out of both of them, hopefully 750mhz stable. Processor hasn't died yet, so I'm assuming no liquid metal has made it anywhere it shouldn't. Still going to run the board horizontal for a while just in case.
Using a single san ace at 12V, two cards at stock speeds, i7 at stock speeds, I'm getting ibt + furmark load temps of 60 degrees on the processor and 45 on the graphics cards. Not great, but not a bad effort for a single fan and I've got hot air coming out of a psu which is good news in terms of testing the waterblock on it. No more photos as I don't feel I've done anything particularly worth photographing today yet, leak testing and flashing gpus took quite a while.
Radiators are earthed, psu connected directly to radiators. So no harmful ac is going to make it to my processor. Going to put some more earthing wires in place in the interests of redundancy. The barbs sticking out of the psu are very definitely not earthed, despite two layers of pvc tape. I'm inclined to guess that currents are being induced in the base of the waterblock by the varying ac in the copper plate below, I'd like to consider these to be harmless eddy currents so I'm trying to find the courage to touch a barb which I know is live to see if it hurts or not. Multimeter can't cope with the voltage at the barb, it's guessing any number it can think of. Sampling errors I guess. As it stands I believe the barbs to be completely isolated from the psu casing, and the voltages in the copper base of the block to be indirect (can't imagine the tape has failed completely, though it doesn't like compression). Think I'm going to post in GH asking for a sparky
Last edited:
Those GPU temps are really good for only have one fan connected, which rads are you using here again?
Don't you get scared when you're messing around with stuff like this Jon?!?
I'd probably be dead by now if I was to attempt anything like this!
Don't you get scared when you're messing around with stuff like this Jon?!?
I'd probably be dead by now if I was to attempt anything like this!
Was definitely scared to hit the on button with the psu block in the loop. Done so now though, and nothing died immediately. Need to get some Kapton tape apparently, as that'll insulate electrically but let heat through. System is behaving itself well enough, but I'm not convinced I'm actually going to extract any heat from the psu with the current arrangement. Also found the courage to touch the barbs while they were live, and pleased to report it didn't hurt. I don't think there's much current behind it. Wrapped them up in pvc tape and run some extra ground wires just to be sure.
I'm pretty pleased with the graphics cards. One has a core only + heatsink which I'm a bit worried about, but it's placed such that air flows over it from a radiator so fingers crossed. That was with two feser 120s, one either side of the san ace. I've now put a 240 in the loop as well, with two 1600rpm s-flex attached. It's really quite loud at 12V. Temperatures aren't as good as I'd hoped if I'm honest, cpu in particular is running quite warm at 60. Think I'm going to remount it.
I'm pretty pleased with the graphics cards. One has a core only + heatsink which I'm a bit worried about, but it's placed such that air flows over it from a radiator so fingers crossed. That was with two feser 120s, one either side of the san ace. I've now put a 240 in the loop as well, with two 1600rpm s-flex attached. It's really quite loud at 12V. Temperatures aren't as good as I'd hoped if I'm honest, cpu in particular is running quite warm at 60. Think I'm going to remount it.
Associate
- Joined
- 4 Oct 2007
- Posts
- 473
- Location
- Belfast
Jon, if you're getting electric shocks when the PSU is off, you might need to drain the caps first.On my valve amp I got filter caps rated 400V, and they keep charge for days. I short them to ground with a 1M ohm resistor for about 30 secs. And remember, only one hand in at a time 
One hand at a time is excellent advice for anyone playing with electronics. I'm pretty sure it's not the capacitors, as I'm only getting shocked when the psu is switched on. Not daft enough to touch a psu that's been turned off
Temperatures continue to be poor. Got some more air out of the top radiator but it doesn't seem to have made much difference. Either flow rate is an issue or I've totally cocked up the cpu block, hard to guess which one so I think the next step is putting a 10W and 18W ddc in series. Just discovered I can't fit the side panel back on with the radiator on its side, so either I'm cutting up the panel or stripping the loop down and turning the radiator back upright. Not sure which is less appealing, think I'll buy a hacksaw.
I'm going to leave this for a couple of days, quite frustrated with it.
Temperatures continue to be poor. Got some more air out of the top radiator but it doesn't seem to have made much difference. Either flow rate is an issue or I've totally cocked up the cpu block, hard to guess which one so I think the next step is putting a 10W and 18W ddc in series. Just discovered I can't fit the side panel back on with the radiator on its side, so either I'm cutting up the panel or stripping the loop down and turning the radiator back upright. Not sure which is less appealing, think I'll buy a hacksaw.
I'm going to leave this for a couple of days, quite frustrated with it.
Jon, can I ask you, how did you go about checking your 10w DDC to see whether the solder mod worked or not?
I know you used a DMM, but where did you take the readings from?
Also, how much did you pay for your DMM?
I've fitted both of my DDC's onto my Watercool dual top, and I did some testing the other day to make sure they were working ok, and it seems to be running fine, but I'm a little bit worried incase the mod didn't work properly, when I first did the mod I checked it in the BIOS and it was running at 4000+rpm (I can't remember the exact figure but it was over 4000rpm), but mine is a v3.3 like yours as well, so I've started to have doubts about whether it has actually worked, and I no longer have the rpm sensor wire connected anymore as it was just getting in the way so I desoldered it.
I'm considering taking it apart again and removing the laquer from the PCB and then resoldering it again just to be sure that it's done properly, but ideally I'd prefer to go out and buy a DMM and check it properly first before I go tearing it apart again.
Regarding the side panel mate, I'd probably opt for putting the rad upright again instead of hacking up your case.
See the block you have on your pump, how exactly is this fitted to the PSU, is there a copper block on the inside of the PSU cover and then you've screwed the top of the block through the cover into the copper base, and this copper base is in contact with the block in the PSU?
Also, what's happened to your CPU temps that they are sitting at 60c, is this at stock?
Your temps used to be around that when you were running the chip at 4.2GHz didn't they?
Is it just because you have the 2nd card and PSU in the loop now?
Sorry for all the questions, I'm just being nosey!!!
I know you used a DMM, but where did you take the readings from?
Also, how much did you pay for your DMM?
I've fitted both of my DDC's onto my Watercool dual top, and I did some testing the other day to make sure they were working ok, and it seems to be running fine, but I'm a little bit worried incase the mod didn't work properly, when I first did the mod I checked it in the BIOS and it was running at 4000+rpm (I can't remember the exact figure but it was over 4000rpm), but mine is a v3.3 like yours as well, so I've started to have doubts about whether it has actually worked, and I no longer have the rpm sensor wire connected anymore as it was just getting in the way so I desoldered it.
I'm considering taking it apart again and removing the laquer from the PCB and then resoldering it again just to be sure that it's done properly, but ideally I'd prefer to go out and buy a DMM and check it properly first before I go tearing it apart again.
Regarding the side panel mate, I'd probably opt for putting the rad upright again instead of hacking up your case.
See the block you have on your pump, how exactly is this fitted to the PSU, is there a copper block on the inside of the PSU cover and then you've screwed the top of the block through the cover into the copper base, and this copper base is in contact with the block in the PSU?
Also, what's happened to your CPU temps that they are sitting at 60c, is this at stock?
Your temps used to be around that when you were running the chip at 4.2GHz didn't they?
Is it just because you have the 2nd card and PSU in the loop now?
Sorry for all the questions, I'm just being nosey!!!
I took a 3 pin to molex adapter which happened to have a male and female molex wired together, cut through the yellow 12V wire and put the multimeter in series between the two. Just looped the free wire around the probes and turned the multimeter to the appropriate setting. I paid £4.99 for it from the blue high street shop, which is a bargain however I look at it. Can't say I'd trust it for intricate work, but you're better off with an oscilloscope then anyway. Oh, 10W at 12V should be about 0.8A, 18W at 12V about 1.5A. I think mine were reading 0.78 and 1.35A respectively, not that I have any means of estimating the errors.
Lacquer on pcbs? Oh. That would explain why the solder didn't take then.
I've put the rad upright and added the second ddc, at 10W into the loop. I don't think it'll die, but if it does, at least I'll know. Will connect up and retry ibt shortly.
The psu block is an xspc chipset one, it's a stubby acetal cylinder with a copper disk screwed into the base. Blind luck that it fits as neatly as it does. The copper base is pressed into the psu heatsink by means of a mounting bracket with a screw holding one side down and the case itself holding the other side down. It's now very tricky to get the lid on. There's three layers of pvc tape on the base, because I'm a coward really. I'm not convinced it's actually removing any heat from the psu. Need to replace with better tape, but at £15 to £20 a roll I think I'll leave it for a little bit.
I'm wondering about the cpu temps myself. Getting 70ish at 4ghz and not sure why, can't see an 8800gt making that much difference. Hopefully the second pump will solve this, if it doesn't I may have ruined my ek supreme.
Lacquer on pcbs? Oh. That would explain why the solder didn't take then.
I've put the rad upright and added the second ddc, at 10W into the loop. I don't think it'll die, but if it does, at least I'll know. Will connect up and retry ibt shortly.
The psu block is an xspc chipset one, it's a stubby acetal cylinder with a copper disk screwed into the base. Blind luck that it fits as neatly as it does. The copper base is pressed into the psu heatsink by means of a mounting bracket with a screw holding one side down and the case itself holding the other side down. It's now very tricky to get the lid on. There's three layers of pvc tape on the base, because I'm a coward really. I'm not convinced it's actually removing any heat from the psu. Need to replace with better tape, but at £15 to £20 a roll I think I'll leave it for a little bit.
I'm wondering about the cpu temps myself. Getting 70ish at 4ghz and not sure why, can't see an 8800gt making that much difference. Hopefully the second pump will solve this, if it doesn't I may have ruined my ek supreme.
Is your i7 lapped/flattened in any way? Could be that flattening the CPU block out has reduced the contact on the IHS ontop of the die. My i7 wasnt too flat - I would have lapped my Megahelems if I wasnt sure I needed the bow to get the pressure. Im not up for risking my i7 just yet.
Yeah, the processor is lapped. I think competently. Base of the ek was flycut then mounted back onto the acetal which should have reintroduced a slight bow to it. Mounted using liquid metal tim which may have a settling in time, but even then I was hoping for better temps than +10 on before.
CPU temperatures are very unsteady, flickering +/-5 degrees on each core every second or so. Not seen that before so unsure what it indicates.
CPU temperatures are very unsteady, flickering +/-5 degrees on each core every second or so. Not seen that before so unsure what it indicates.
Have you also lapped your CPU yes?
I'm not sure about the Supreme, but I know the Heatkiller has a slightly uneven base on purpose, and that it isn't advised to lap these blocks as it can affect the performance of them. the base is supposed to adapt to the shape of the processors IHS so that it makes a perfect contact.
Maybe the supreme is the same?
::edit::
Must have posted at the same time, I never saw your post above until I posted this!
I'm not sure about the Supreme, but I know the Heatkiller has a slightly uneven base on purpose, and that it isn't advised to lap these blocks as it can affect the performance of them. the base is supposed to adapt to the shape of the processors IHS so that it makes a perfect contact.
Maybe the supreme is the same?
::edit::
Must have posted at the same time, I never saw your post above until I posted this!
The base on the supreme wasn't pretty. Not only bowed outwards in the middle, it also had patches which were concave and rose up at two of the edges. Putting the second pump in has brought cpu temperatures down to about 60 degrees though they're still really unsteady. A bit over 65 for combined cpu and furmark, so apparently flow rate does make a difference after all.