Project Smurf 3.0

[Smffy]

I know I don't NEED new fans... but. When they run full it's like 2,100RPM so I will drop them down some anyway. Can always swap them out in future but I'll admit to being close to throwing £80 at some New non LED MLS.

Thinking about it I'm sure someone was selling 10 they won... I'm also tempted to add a rear fan to improve flow but I might just see if it's better when I remove the cover and could just be a passive exhaust with a grill.

 

[Smffy]

Push/pull shoving air in the front(x8) and bottom(x4) with the top exhausting hot out (x2 front/x3 rear).

I mean 17 fans is enough I know but will no doubt mess with it moving forward

 

[Smffy]

Yay fan geek out!! Haha.

I'll probably just try removing the guard. There's another option also, 3 more fans at the rear back chamber pulling more cold in... or maybe I need another rad? Lol

 

[Smffy]

Just booted up windows... nothing has exploded yet.

 

[Smffy]

Must need overclocking then...clearly running too cool

How's the colourful vocabulary going around the fill and bleed?

Its a dream to bleed and i've figure out easy fill...

Bottom drain port does some amazing work, then because i've got multi ports on the top I can literally turn the ball valve to seal, stick the PETG in a fitting up top and lay it on its back. Open the drain valve to vent air and it drains the rest.

About to drain and fill with coolant before the OC starts, idles are low... Fans on 100% until i sort the Aq. config

 

[Smffy]

Soooo, boring bit first... Drained and refilled the de-ionised water for a final rinse and while it was running made the last few cables:

Tidy up round back...

And finally drain again after testing that everything wasn't dead from the months of building... Amazingly works fine, so commenced filling with the proper stuff:

Its not really gone at all Orange but I don't mind it, spot of colour is all you see here so its pretty nice:

So its now working, fingers crossed nothing odd happens with the coolant and pipes. Few quick benchmarks and a basic 4.5 overclock on the CPU it seems much improved on the last case... The CPU idles at about 17c (sometimes 15), GPUs 23c, particularly impressive is the GPUs under full load are between 30-33c which is almost half the previous and lower than anything I've ever seen on a single GPU let alone two of these heat monsters. Difficult to overclock them as they've always just run at 2025 as is.

A promising start.

P.s. its so cold sitting near it I need to sort out my Aquaero and dial down the breeze!

 

[Smffy]

Ordered replacement fans... Its not very effective trying to manage the speed of the MLs with the SPs as the power reduction to stop the whine on the higher RPM SP results in the ML dropping to say 400rpm at 50%.

I've gone for the plain black ML120s though which come in twin packs so only about £50. Still need to get the glass ordered, and I'm going to redo my delid CPU as it literally won't clock over 4.5 right now when it originally ran @ 4.8 no dramas. The GPUs seem to overclock really well but i'm hitting 'SLI' limit in GPU-Z which I think is probably down to the lane limit and 8x - unless i'm missing something? I can clock the 1080s at 2,150 with fans at 50% and they only hit 40c, no crashes just the performance peak seems more like 2,100mhz. Memory would also run happily at 5,505.

So more draining to be done, i've ordered the yellow coolant to mix with red in the hope it will actually change colour lol.

 

[Smffy]

Ah, yes if you've got a mix of ML and SP (or any non-identical fans) on one channel, that would make things more challenging.

Run out of PCI-E channels? So well be seeing a migration to X99 next then?

I'll be honest I was thinking about it before but i'd want top end and the 6950 pricing is still insane. So we will see what Ryzen brings, I still get strange performance when benching like freezing in Heaven runs for example but sort of sticks a frame for fractions of a second then continues (just enough to notice it). No FPS drops reporting, voltage limit seems to kick in unless ramped up a lot but still the same problem occurs when its not even clocked... Difficult to figure it out, will think about it while im away for the weekend and see next week!

 

[Smffy]

Some small updates, so the giant was drained and removed the CPU block firstly to redo my delid to be 100% confident it was awesome. Its now awesome and the good news is that second time round I didnt kill it either... After that the front fans were swapped out with this swag:

The result is a much less whiney fan noise and consistent RPM from all the 3 hubs including the front 8 fan stack. Pretty happy with that, if you are viewing this with binoculars you will have seen the yellow/green UV coolant - WTF you say?! Short story, the dye does nothing on the blood red coolant so having drained out roughly 2 litres of prime red I literally threw it away after its two day stint and added two litres of this.

Result was an interesting deep orange with the odd strange tint. Much better:

Been pretty busy really and away, ironically after all this the only thing broken is my mouse... So a new Deathadder Chroma turned up today, plus I had a bit of a crack overclocking the GPUs:

With the fans at 50%, pumps are silent at 65% (Pumps are working fine off the mobo header for signal connected with a Y splitter from EK) it still only hit 38/39c with a reasonable boost going on. CPU next but for whatever reason my 6700k which had run fine at 4.8 is being a pain so work required to shift it past the happy 4.5.

 

[Smffy]

Well, its been a while but kicking off some more work on this bad boy... Mainly on where i'm putting it, finally got round to making my industrially desk for it - the thing is huge so needs much more space:

Some scaffold pole cut to size with the clamp fittings:

Crafted in to this mega frame, seriously strong... Its 150cm long for reference:

Have yet to decide/get round to making the final top piece but basically this is made from Ikea chopping boards for now

Its come up alright I reckon, will give the thing some thought for a final finish but for now at least its off the floor! Also have to make a mount for my custom bit of tempered glass to create a full side window and show off all the good stuff inside, glass is just sat there for now but planning to sort that out pretty soon when I next get time:

As you can see from the above bit of a glare but its reduced when flush to the case and I plan on applying a very light tint film to it just to take the edge of the LEDs.

The trouble is that this has also happened this weekend:

Madness?

Something to play with until x299 comes to retail, will be sticking the grey modified Z170 Deluxe and delid 6700k on the members market once its in. From looking at some measurements the GPU pipe work should still line up, the CPU i'm not 100% on but the brown box is the AM4 adaptor for the Raystorm Pro so its possible I won't need to make a load of new pipes... I'll be ordering a few more 16mm copper elbows just in case and have about 10 x 500mm EKHD PETG laying about if I need a temp solution.

So yeah basically i've not even finished it and its already changed... Oops

 

[Smffy]

In fairness chaps, i've not actually bought ANY 1080Ti's so I've done pretty well!!! Once this Ryzen lark is in i'll sort the glass front out, it will look lovely! We shall see if i've had any luck with the chip, i'm hoping it copes with my SLI cards a bit better and clearly temperatures are not a problem in this so if I can get a comfortable 4.1 out of it then job done... 4.2 and i'll be very happy.

The scaffold is really good, i'm leaving it uncoated so it tarnishes up a bit and should look nice and industrial. Which is why i'm thinking for the desk top it should be a bit of aged timber or something, kind of railway sleepers but of course not that thick... So stealing a pub bench maybe

Hah! You're so funny!

I've measured up and because my current board is Asus pretty sure the GPU from the bottom is exactly the same (same PCI config 100%), the CPU is either very close to the same or slightly different which means I might get away with a simple trim on the tube to the top of the GPU and a new piece for the top left... So actually pretty decent all things considered. If it happens to all line up beautifully well i'll be loving that.

 

[Smffy]

looks sweet, Polarized lens is a must with glass. will help the shots a lot! but you still need to get angle right, just being off centered and at slight height or drop

Literally just got an iPhone, zero photography skills

Re:finishing, it's oil treated already but if I did change for wood I would probably do that anyway... then possibly glass over it not sure!

 

[Smffy]

Hah! You're so funny!

New pipes: 0...
5mm trim on one (both ends), slight cheat with a 10mm extender on the top left behind the fans.

So I guess now I try and get my memory working properly... Or buy something new. At least it works so far, playing with clocks with stock RAM and so far 4.0 is fine, 4.1 next.

 

[Smffy]

10mm extension is fine. Like I always say: if at first you don't succeed....cheat!

Stupidly ordered a load more 16mm 90s (copper ones) but didn't get any straight joins or I could have just made a proper new one very easily... Oh well, next time I drain it!

I literally don't know anything about memory OC so this is going to be fun, seems pretty happy at 4.1 so far. Actually don't even know what RAM I have... The model number was on the heat spreaders LOL. DDR4 3000 corsair somethings.

 

[Smffy]

That are those internal white fans Smffy ?

Looking for some nice bright ones, like those

Those are the ML120 but actually the RGB ones just set to white... Nice fans, but regret bothering with the RGB so just get the white ones if they are the same clear body? So HD120 RGB Corsair but the ML120 white should be spot on.

Looking good, tho your be forever polishing the copper.

It's coated in micro crystalline wax so doesn't actually tarnish much at all... just goes a nice Orange colour.

 

[Smffy]

Guess whos back ... Some updates, monoblock for the Ryzen 1800x and CH6 motherboard. Looks very tidy, was of course a little bit of work making some more copper again (been a while ) but i reckon its worth it:

RGB connector is in and run round the block, funny thing with this monoblock is that the CPU contact is a circle... So its not touching the corners???! I mean I guess it must work but its odd given its all cut to size and then the CPU contact isnt the right shape, or i'm just a monoblock noob?

New pipes run:

Left Mr. Drop connected and went to the pub... Just come back and of course did some ill advised filling half cut

More beer, no leaks so far but the Dr. Drop tests were spot on so none expected. It obviously works coz i'm using it to do this... For those of you that have followed this ill advised copper fest from the start, no I STILL havent fitted the tempered glass side HAHA! I did recently measure up and intend to do it before Xmas .

So far so good... Possible intel swap next year but we shall wait and see, some new 4,000mhz RAM will be the next addition.

 

[Smffy]

Amazing !

Not been around much so didn't know you'd gone red. Looks awesome dude great work.

Thanks and ditto to not being about! Its not really red I add both yellow/green and blood red so I get a sort of nice copper orange colour. This refill I dont feel i've got the balance quite right so I might drain out a bit and add more yellow/green. Its a pain this copper lark but it does look nice and its all about the experience and learning along the way isn't it?

 

[Smffy]

Few more snaps with it all up and running, looks nice and seems to perform well so far though I've not done any benching since.

 

[Smffy]

Well hello

Recently moved house and given I had to fully drain this beast to transport it I took the chance to have a bit of a refresh. In case anyone is still interested some pictures of the cleaned up machine and my crazy fan and rad collection, there is STILL only 1 GPU in the build as i'm on a stop gap 1080Ti (sold my 1080s) until new cards release then back to a more fitting 2 card setup. Currently contemplating getting a Corsair 1000d and doing a rebuild... Decisions!

Enjoy...

Fully stripped down machine reveals my 17 fans, neatly cabled doesnt even cut it once its put together:

Stripped and cleaned the copper:

Cleaned all the radiators (480, 360, 240 x2) and decided I would respray them - if you scrolled back through this build I was never completely happy with the paint job on the white HWLabs SR2s it always seemed a little thin. They now look amazing in new brilliant matt white:

Reassembled clean as hell components, hiding my massive amount of fan cables:



Opted for a new colour coolant, I think the contrast with the white and orange really works. Its a blend of some mayhems UV purple (which looks blue guys come on) and the UV pink, about a 60/40 ratio in favour of blue gave me what I was looking for:



Any last but not least, scroll back and you'll see I was rocking a scaffold galvanised desk frame (custom tube ordered and assembled), I now have made a proper top by reclaiming some old scaffold boards and sanding/teak oiling to give me a desk with a lovely industrial almost old oak looking feel. It fits the size of this rig also given its MASSIVE... I've made more furniture from this also, some shelves (with cast iron brackets and coffee table, looks nice).


Thats me for now, shall I buy a 1000d then?