Project Viking

[Ohjay]

A little bit of progress today but I'm missing basic stuff I forgot about, like screws, which halted progress today. *slaps forehead*

Aaaanyway, nice spread of thermal paste here by EVGA:


All naked and clean. Purrty stuff:


Almost ready for the water block:


Fiddlier than I thought it would be but I think I did a good job:


And the original back plates still fits, very happy about this:


Both of the cards done:


Did a quick test to see how things fit:


I will have to modify the reservoir bracket, there's about 5mm that needs to be removed, otherwise it's looking good.

 

[FloppyPoppy]

Looking good! But seriously those stop/plug fittings on the card that will stay there could do with matching so you don't have a silver set and a black set ( sorry just think it will look miles cleaner )

Great log so far buddy good job!

 

[Gaming4Life]

This is looking really nice so far! I'm interested as to how it will look once complete and has better lighting to make it look real purrttty

 

[theaterix]

That looks amazing.... The blue matches class, bet that was a relief! Cant wait to see this all finished!!

 

[Ohjay]

Looking good! But seriously those stop/plug fittings on the card that will stay there could do with matching so you don't have a silver set and a black set ( sorry just think it will look miles cleaner )

Great log so far buddy good job!

Don't worry. I just put those plugs in there to make sure nothing gets into the blocks. All visible plugs will be black in the end.

This is looking really nice so far! I'm interested as to how it will look once complete and has better lighting to make it look real purrttty

Thank you for the kind words.
There isn't a whole lot of good daylight here up in the "north" so the image quality ain't the best. I'll make sure the final images will be though. Hopefully some of the upcoming ones will be better as well.

 

[ukxenon]

Wow I like.it

 

[Luggs]

Them GPU's look so sweet all blocked up, nice work matey!

Surely the plugs are going to be purple!!

 

[Ohjay]

Them GPU's look so sweet all blocked up, nice work matey!

Surely the plugs are going to be purple!!

I'll keep that in mind for an eventual revision of this build.. I don't think spots of purple on the black would look good so I'd have to paint the terminals as well.



In other news, want the good or the bad first?

Let's start with good.
The dremel came, saw and conquered:

Doesn't look too shabby but I might touch it up with some black paint.

I did a mockup with the top radiator and a fan, just to get an idea of how much space I'll have:




It will be tight, really tight. I almost regret not going for angle fittings but I think it'll still be doable.
That final image will probably be how I mount the reservoir and the keen observer has already noticed that the fittings aren't fully screwed in so there are a few millimeters more to gain here.

I also finally managed to remove two pins from the PSU-cables. I had to mod the pin removal tool to make it work with the Corsair PSU but now it's easy peasy to remove the wires.
Which leads me to another problem, the capacitors on the cables. I have yet to figure out a good way to deal with the ones that are on the component side of the cables. The ones on the PSU side will be hidden anyway so I won't bother with them, but the ones near, for example, the motherboard, how will I hide/cover them up? Any ideas people?
I can't put sleeve over the capacitors so I could heatshrink them or maybe try to hide them amongst the other wires.

The bad news then...
My order containing the CPU block, secondary storage and tubing mandrels have been delayed yet again. The shipping agent returned the package to the sender for some unknown reason. Hopefully they can send it again but I won't have these parts until sometime next week at the earliest.
I swear it feels like these items are cursed, it has been nothing but trouble with this retailer.

 

[jacob1995knight]

A solution that would also look good for the issue with the reservoir could be this:



Hope this helps

 

[GAM8LE]

this colour combination is looking fantastic!

 

[Ohjay]

A solution that would also look good for the issue with the reservoir could be this:

*snip*

Hope this helps

Thanks for the suggestion.
Unfortunately I think this gold color won't match the other gold colors I have.
But I think the bends will be doable. it will be tight, but doable.

this colour combination is looking fantastic!

Thanks! Hopefully it will look even better when all parts are in and there's some highlight lighting



Today I finally took delivery of what I hope to be the last batch of parts.
Dogmeat is as usual keeping watch of the proceedings:


Secondary storage, yay!


Some mandrels so I can get purrty bends:


And the most anticipated part which has been the reason there hasn't really been any progress:

With the CPU block finally here I can start installing parts in the case and get cracking on those pipes. Fun times ahead!

(The last box had some uninteresting Primochill tools for bends, like gloves and cleaning fluid)


There has been a little bit of progress though...
I decided to scrap the idea of sleeving the original cables on the Corsair PSU, too many capacitors, double wires, crossed wires to make it even look half-decent.
So I bought some wire, crimps, connectors and tools:


I think about half of the cables are done and ready for sleeving.
I've intentionally made the extensions short, we'll see if that comes back to haunt me, but I think it'll be fine. No original PSU wiring will be seen anyway.

 

[Smffy]

Good god I wish I had the patience for sleeving... Think i'm gonna just order some for mine

 

[Luggs]

What a lovely box of goodies to turn up just before Crimbly!

What Smffy said, you either a masochist or got far too much free time on your hands lol

 

[Ohjay]

Good god I wish I had the patience for sleeving... Think i'm gonna just order some for mine

What a lovely box of goodies to turn up just before Crimbly!

What Smffy said, you either a masochist or got far too much free time on your hands lol

Time is something I really haven't got a lot of considering I'm working full time plus I'm studying full time... Wouldn't consider myself a masochist either
If there had been a good color option for premade extensions I might've bought that, but I didn't find any.



Decent bit of progress today. The CPU is in its rightful place:


CPU-block mounted:



The black does stick out a bit, a fully acrylic block might've been better. But we'll see, I have a trick up my sleeve.

The m.2 SSD went in as well:


After that I moved on to the PCIe SSD.
It was scary to remove the stock cooler, it was stuck really hard onto the heatpads on the chips and I had to use a lot, and I mean a lot, of force to get it loose.


Cleaned up and ready for new heatpads and thermal paste.


This was a right pain. The EKWB heatpads were a lot more troublesome to work with than the XSPC counterparts that I worked with on the GPU blocks.
They(the EKWB ones) stuck to my fingers all the time and the protective film was troublesome to get off.
But patience paid off:


All done!


Everyone keeps saying I'm mad for doing custom sleeving and also that it's frustrating, time-consuming and a right PITA.
It's not the prettiest job but this was my first attempt:

That wasn't hard at all, I was so surprised at how easy it was. Guess I got too cocky because the next cable took three tries to get right.

As soon as I get a bit more of the technique done I think it'll go a bit faster to get the sleeving done.
Actually, the trickiest part has been to fit the wires into the connectors. The fit is so incredibly tight when you use 16 AWG wire and then add the sleeving to that...
Seeing this tho makes it all worth it:

This is going to look so, so, so good

(Don't mind the cable comb, it's only there for the photo. One with the right amount of slots will be used when the cables go in)

 

[Ohjay]

Honest opinion guys. Awesome, good, bad, ugly, my eyes my eyes?!

 

[OJ46]

Looking good mate, cables are going to finish it off a treat. This build is going to look so blingy when it's finished

 

[Ohjay]

Looking good mate, cables are going to finish it off a treat. This build is going to look so blingy when it's finished

Thanks!
I was, and still am, a bit worried that the gray is too much. It will mostly be the PCIe cables that will be visible though so maybe I'll end up redoing them if I'm not happy.


There hasn't been that much progress the last few days with the holidays and work taking up most of my time.

But I've fitted most of the components:



The tube from the reservoir to the pump is going to be insane. I have to plan it very carefully I think.

My drain solution, I'm quite happy with this to be honest:


The first tube has been installed. Not quite the trickiest one


Made my first attempt at bending the tubing today. First bend was good but it needed some adjustment and when I reheated it I managed to heat it too much so it started to bubble on me.
Second attempt is much better but not yet final:

The bend needs to be tighter and the entire tube needs to be shortened a bit. But it's a start at least.


This build is really becoming a good learning experience. Acrylic is both easier and harder than I anticipated but with some more practice I think I can get a pretty good result.

Same thing with the custom sleeving, it has been quite an experience. Precision is everything, absolutely everything. A few millimeters of difference in length on the wires makes a world of difference in the final appearance. Even a slight difference in how much you strip the wire and where you put the crimp makes a huge difference in the final result.
I'll show the cables once I'm done so you can see some of my mistakes. I probably won't correct them since they won't be visible anyway, but at some point I'll redo the extensions I believe.

 

[ALXAndy]

Interesting choice of colours but I must say I quite like it.

 

[powelly]

I'm a little bit jealous

 

[Bossman]

Love the pump behind the motherboard tray, great idea.