Re-housing a freebie system into a smaller case

KnightInd2000

KnightInd2000

KnightInd2000

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Re-housing a freebie system into a smaller case (Newbie)

Hi All, just joined and this is my first post.

A friend of mine has kindly given me his old system and although it is quite a bit quicker than my old system, it is too big and too noisy to put in the lounge - where my current PC lives.

So my plan is to re-house it into a smaller case whilst retaining as much of the donated system as possible. This includes water-cooling and my current case is just too small to house it so I’ve bought a new Fractal Design Define R4 for this purpose (I hope it’s suitable).

Now this won’t be an all singing, all dancing ‘benchmark smasher’ as I’m on a very tight budget and the parts are already 3 years old. But I’m posting because I’m completely new to water-cooling so will, no doubt, need a lot of help! Also, I’m sure I won’t be the last to take their first steps into the realms of a water-cooled PC so hopefully my learnings will prove of help to others.

I am prepared to do my research but if I asked a stupid question, please be forgiving!

First off here’s the donated system. Who recognises what?

fEqhgnn.jpg

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My first task was to work out how to take the thing apart!
I stood the whole case in the bath and started with the pump. Once this was unscrewed from the base I could move most of it outside and set to work on the connector.
Now I know it sounds daft but I didn’t know how these worked so by trial and error I found that they have an outer compression ring (on the left) which unscrews and then slides down the tube which then allows you to simply pull the tube off barb part (on the right) and let the water drain away. Then the barb part unscrews from the pump top using a penny.

YGQt16J.jpg

Not sure what connector this is though
 
tamzzy said:
noooo dont do it!
the current rig has a 360 and 240mm rad, the define r4 wont be able to fit it.
just turn the fan speed down on the current rig and it'll run quiet. 600mm of rad is more than sufficient to cool the beast, even at lowest fan settings.
Click to expand...


Unfortunately the TJ07 won't fit in my desk so the Define R4 had to be purchased.
Appreciate that this will be a bit of a squeeze and I’m not making my first steps into water-cooling very easy but needs must. And to just leave it alone would be a bit boring!
 
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I won’t be able to fit the EK-BAY SPIN Reservoir into the Define R4 because I want to retain a DVD drive in one of the 2 bays and this is a dual bay res. So I’m thinking of attaching a reservoir to the pump. The pump is a Swiftech MCP655 which I think is the same as a Laing D5. Is this correct?

rtG0cKL.jpg

So does anyone know if I can remove the EK top from this pump and replace it with one of these?... http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=WC-319-EK
 
The guy who gave me the system has also come up trumps with a huge 2 fan radiator, that he's no longer using, to see if I can fit it into my new build.
And some spare white tubing because he's gone rigid. (sorry - that sounds so wrong!).

AFT0XCZ.jpg

So, should be ready to start the build next weekend (all being well).
 
Yeah, he's a good egg. He's just taken two Titan's out of his main rig to put three R9 290X's in, which gives you and idea of his budget :D. To him this is just the old stuff out of his second rig which he has just upgraded and is mainly used for video ripping.
 
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The pieces are starting to go in. It looked as though the pump/res wouldn’t fit without losing the hard drive caddy but I’ve had an idea to save it by converting it into a pump bracket by cutting a hole (or 5) in the top!

Here is the caddy and pump just resting in place...


P5VjzxJ.jpg
 
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