Project "One" - Corsair 650D

[stueng]

Credit to: [email protected] for making my acrylic floor/box which has not yet been fit yet. Feel free to contact him should you want anything made

Phase 1 Complete:

Phase 2 To-Do List:

1. Purchse 2 X GFX cards and associated full blocks
2. Drill, tube and fit fill and drain ports
3. Add the water temperature sensors and cut out mounts in the case to display water temps
4. Obtain "basement" area and fit it in

Build Log

This is my first custom build and also my first water cooled build

Progress will be quite slow on this as I have a busy day job and it gets dark real early so I only really have the weekends to get stuff done

I have purchased the below list of kit, I haven't purchased a new motherboard and CPU yet... I will get the rest done first. I already have an Asus Sabretooth motherboard and Phenom x4 CPU

I currently have 2 X Geforece 560Ti, one is MSI and the other is OcUK. Neiter are reference. I have not decided what to do about this yet, I deffinately want them under water. Whether I buy new reference cards or manually watercool them is yet to be decided

1 X Corsair Professional Series 1050W
1 X Corsair 650D Case
2 X Corsair Dominator 4GB, 1866MHZ, C9
2 X Crucial 128GB M4 for RAID 0
1 X EK Supreme HF CPU Waterblock - Nickel Plexi
1 X EK Supreme HF GPU Waterblock – Nickel Plexi
1 X Hwlabs BlackIce 240mm SR-1 Radiator
1 X Phobya 200mm Xtreme Radiator
1 X EK Multioption Reservoir X2 250 Advanced
1 X OcUK Tech Lab - D5 Vario Pump & Alphacool Clear HF D5 Top Value Combo
1 X Lamptron FC5 V2 5.25" Bay Fan Controller - Black
2 X Mayhems Aurora - Tharsis Red Coolant 1L
2 X Scythe Gentle Typhoon 120mm 1850 RPM - 3 Pin
1 X Xigmatek 200mm Red LED FAN
1 X Masterkleer Hose Pack PVC 15,9/11mm (7/16ID) Clear 3.3m
2 X EK-PSC Adapter Rotary 90° G1/4 Nickel
2 X EK-PSC Adapter Rotary 45° G1/4 Nickel
12 X EK PSC Compression Fitting 7/16 [16/11mm] - G1/4 – Nickel
1 X MDPC "Christmas Special" - Black Sleeving
1 X MDPC Red Small Sleeving
1 X MDPC Crimping Tool + 160 Crimps
1 X Artic Silver
1 X Artic Silver Paste Cleaner
1 X Dremmel

Assortment of rad mounting screws, washers, m3 screws, allen keys, precision screw drivers, double sided tape, velcro

Whats missing

1 X EK-RAM x4. Waterblock for Corsair Dominator RAM
1 X Motherboard (probably Asus Z68 Pro, I’d prefer a red board though…)
1 X Waterblock for Motherboard
1 X CPU (I think I want the i5 2500K)

 

[stueng]

Ok, so some updates...

I got the case out and removed two lower drive bays, this case allows you to then mount one of the drive bays behind the PSU freeing up space behind the front 200mm fan... this is a very nice feature

I then mounted the top 240mm radiator

Then had a look at the front radiator mounting position.. this is where the 200mm fan was and the metal plate comes with the Phobya 200mm Xtreme to help you mount

The plate has a few diferent holes in it to allow you to mount in different positions. The outer most holes are what the radiator mount onto, the inner most holes are supposed to be 200mm I suspect

Problem was that the holes were millimetres off.. I couldnt get the rad to mount at all, I tried bending the mounting plate slightly but no luck

So out comes the Dremel, I got this off ebay new for £20... I dont really know what all the bits are for but I made the holes slightly bigger quite easily..

Problem now was the bolts no longer catch onto the thread.. so I used masking tape to adhere some 3.5mm nuts onto the back side of the plate

The next problem was that the mounting bracket for the previous hard drive cage was sticking out enough to stop the radiator from being able to mount in this position

So out came the dremel again...

Problem solved

I then tried mounting again only to find that the radiator bleed hole was in the way

So you know what happens next...

Once I cut this hole the radiator mounted nicely into its position. I thread a bolt from the front side of the case, through a 200mm fan and into the radiator mounting bracket

Once the fan and radiator were mounted it looked quite good

The corsair 650D comes with a bunch of front IO ports as well as a fan controller and a hot plug SATA docking station.. all this adds up to a LOT of cables running around the case before you even install any equipment

So.. I got to work sleeving

And once I had completed all the internal cables

I dug out an old motherboard to make sure I could install it and discovered that I couldnt mount it because the radiator was obscuring the RAM. I had to switch the fans around on the top rad so the fans were under the rad not ontop... I prefered the old way, but I have to do it this way

My problem now is that I have white fans showing, I might spray them red or try get a red LED to light them up with

Anyway... Im gonna call it a night for today

I have no idea how I am going to sleeve this cable...

 

[stueng]

Got home from work and my fingers are sore from sleeving lol so thought I'd have a go at mocking up the loop... just connected up the pump.. to nothing so far

I like the nickel on black

 

[stueng]

of those leather man type things got it from Cornwall or some place weird couldnt find my normal ones at the time lol

 

[stueng]

Can you talk abit more about the electrical tape and the nuts as I have a similar problem with a bottom mounted 240mm rad and will need to do some modding of my own.

The radiator comes with a mounting plate

A = the holes onto which the radiator mounts (onto the back of the plate)
B = the holes onto which the 200mm fan mounts (onto the front of the plate)

The problem was that because I made the holes bigger for the 200mm mount point the bolt had nothing to latch onto when threading a nut through the front of the case, through the fan and into this plate

Because the radiator was mounted to the back of this plate I couldnt hold a nut there

So with the plate removed I attached nuts to the back side of the plate where the 200mm holes using electrical tape so that the bolts had something to latch onto

Does this help?

 

[stueng]

I drew a picture to try explain what I mean a bit better

If you imagine that the yellow square is the mounting bracked (hidden from view) onto which the radiator is mounted

The red star is a nut

The straight red line is a bolt

The black line is a peice of masking tape holing the nut onto the back of the mounting plate so the bolt can latch onto it

 

[stueng]

As this is my first introduction to water cooling I spent this evening figuring stuff out, compression fittings, 90 degree angles, 45 degree angles, how the pump and res work etc.. I set up a very simple loop without any cooling blocks

When looking at how I would run the piping to the top rad I found that the gap between the rad and the case is just about the perfect size allowing the piping leading TO the radiator from the pump to be hidden. I don't like it when the barbs are at the front of the case, I think it looks too cluttered. If I can keep this idea when the rest of the components are in this pipe leading TO the top rad will be hidden, only tubing which connects to actual components will be visible... much better imo

Anyone looking to do this, I suggest you stock up on 90 and 45 degree angles.. I need to order some more

 

[stueng]

I havent made much progress as I cant find a motherboard I actually like.. but in the mean time I have been in talks with PhillyDee on these forums regarding a box I want fabricating to fit in the bottom of the case to hide the pump and PSU

This is the image I sent to PhillyDee and am hoping he will contruct it for our of acrylic. I am also going to try making one our of aluminium by myself so I can see which I prefer

I also purchased an 18mm drill bit to drill holes in the box for my tubes

 

[stueng]

OcUK just tole me that the Gigabyte Z68 UD4 that they just got in stock is infact revision 1.3! So, I have now decided on a motherboard

Not sure if I mentioned this before but my colour scheme is red and black, this motherboard i am sure you will agree fits in quite well with that. My other options were Asus Maximus IV, Asrock Fatal1ty, Asrock Extreme IV or any of the EVGA boards

Im not paying £320 for the maximus because its not even Gen3
The Asrock and EVGA boards have massive heatsinks on the north most mosfet which obscure the fans attached to the top radiators

Here is the board I have chosen, you will notice that the north most heatsink/mosfet does not stick out any further than the RAM which is the absolute limit because of my 54mm top radiator

 

[stueng]

Small update... I am kinda waiting for my basement area thing to make any real progress at the moment. I got a bit of aluminium off fleaday and will be attempting to bend it tomorrow

The stock corsair and the Xigmatek 200mm fan that I ordered were both rubbish. They only pushed about 60cfm of air. After some looking around I found a Coolermaster Mega Flow fan that pushes around 110 cfm. I ordered this but had further difficulty with the 200mm holes not being 200mm on the Phobya mounting plate so I spent a bit with the dremel

Naturally I chose a red LED fan and this is what it looks like in the case and switched on

The gigabyte board arrived and I also got some of those lamptron slot covers in red. Here is the board showing the revision 1.3 and also the red lamptron covers in the case

 

[stueng]

Oh, I also want to mention to anyone looking to build a 650D. The Gigabyte board layout is really nice for this case. With the 140mm fans mounted on the top radiator they clear the top mosfet while blowing huge amounts of air over them. Additionally it looks to me like the CPU power supply will fit without any modding to the fans

 

[stueng]

While I try and build/source my box for the bottom of the case and my fingers recover I have decided to build the loop and get the PC running

Im going to run it like this for a few weeks while I wait to get paid again and build/source the box

I have a few cables left to sleeve which I will do as and when I get time

So... start building the loop:

I had to drill holes in the motherboard tray to screw in the reservoir brackets

I fitted the res and started filling the loop and then started the leak testing. The light is terrible at the moment so the ISO on the camera is set to 6400 so the colours and everything dont look very good. I will get some better pics when there's some natural light around

This is what I was talking about earlier with regards to this motherboard being a good physical fit for this case/setup. The CPU power is not obscured in any way and the top fans fit snugly above the CPU block. As you can see I am still not very good at braiding

 

[stueng]

The front 200mm fan cools a 200mm rad
The top 2X120 GT cools a 240mm rad

 

[stueng]

Leak testing succesfull so I powered it up today. No pics yet as its a mess while I figure out exactly how many power cables and SATA cables I need and all that

Here is my first boot up idle temp. Everything in BIOS is exactly how it was from the factory

My AMD used to idle at 20 degrees on air but I understand Intel operate higher.. no idea if these temps are good or not, they dont seem to be to me

I ran PC Mark with 1 X 560Ti installed and BIOS/CPU/RAM still at factory default

Did some very quick testing on the overclock, managed to get 5GHZ with minimal fuss, manual voltage of 1.5v for a brief time. Could boot but not run stress test

5GHZ idle temps

Played BF3 for two hours with the RAM @ 1866 and the CPU at 4.5GHZ

Then ran PC Mark with the 4.5GHZ overclock

Here are the temps @ 4.5GHZ with Burn Test doing a few loops

 

[stueng]

I'm going to continue messing around with this tomorrow

 

[stueng]

PC is running very well at the moment, the heat from the GFX cards is huge in comparison to the rest of the case, I really need to find a solution for my GFX cards so I can them under water but its all very expensive!

I continue to seek someone who can fabrikate this box that I want at the bottom of the case. I have send off these drawings to someone I found on fleaday but as with many of the people I have contacted they go cold after they find out I only want one of them

Here is what I have sent off anyhow; I have changed it from the original design

The purpose of this box is to hide away the PSU and pump and to have tubing coming in a straight line out of the box as I think it will look good

 

[stueng]

Carbon print is a good idea... Wonder if I can find red/black carbon print will have a loot

The guy I have sent the picture too if he makes it it will be acrylic 2mm thick and I will dremel it to fit

Are you interested in his details or wait for me to photograph mine?

 

[stueng]

nice looking machine too bad about the photo

how did you make that then?

 

[stueng]

I have read a few places to turn off C1E, Thermal Monitor, EIST and other advanced CPU features to increase stability with overclocks and this is one of the first things I did when I overclocked my CPU

With these things turned off I managed to get a boot at 5GHZ 1.5v but could not complete a benchmark/stress test

After some tinckering around I settled on a 4.7GHZ overclock because I could run this at not much over 1.4v

I came accross an official Asus post today and read with much interest that they recommend that you actually leave these advanced settings turned on.

I came home tonight and turned off these settings and tried again to squeeze the most out of my CPU at a reasonable voltage and here are my results

Prime has been running for about an hour now

I am going to keep lowering the voltage until I become unstable and will update again

 

[stueng]

@Wazz-1

Your machine looks amazing.. you really should get some decent photos of it and stick them up I really wanna see all the angles and everything in some good quality photos