The Emulator build - SFF

Jay85 · 27 Oct 2021 at 01:28

Tonight's job coming along nicely! Finally some decent pics using the DSLR!

A few things to note,

The CPU block is slightly touching the caps on the side, i had to widen the holes on the block/pump mounting bracket to allow for some movement left and right so it wouldn't foul on the caps on the motherboard. I'm not sure if its gonna be a problem as the caps are insulated but thinking maybe putting some electrical tape between the cold plate (the parts that touching the cap) and the caps themselves. There is no other way around it...
I decided to add a reservoir despite the pump/block having a fill port. I will still use the pump/block as the fill port but the reservoir around the back of the case will mostly just be there to fill empty space.
GPU block is on the way for the 1060, as well as some heatsinks for the other components.
The bottom 140mm fan will help cool the ram and vrm's.
I need to add a drain port... I have no idea where this will go though.

I had 2 orientations for the reservoir but after some logical thinking the second image works best for natural coolant flow. I feel the side ways mount will cause issues.

Defy Belief · 27 Oct 2021 at 12:58

Looking good :cool:

good use of the rads to move from either side of the 'sandwich'

Jay85 · 27 Oct 2021 at 13:09

Defy Belief said:
Looking good good use of the rads to move from either side of the 'sandwich'

yeah i figured that would be the best way to do it without criss crossing tubes everywhere. Despite the spacious case, it's still quite challenging trying to get everything in there without kinking tubes.

I have some spare hardline fittings that i was tempted to use but it's a lot of work trying to align everything.

Jay85 · 30 Oct 2021 at 02:39

Abit more to the build tonight, purely aesthetics while im waiting for the waterblock to arrive.

The motherboard area was missing some bling and what better way to add some aesthetics than to give the ram some heatsinks!?

I had some old DDR3 Kingston hyper X 4 gig sticks laying around with the Gun metal style heatsinks. Heated them up and carefully peeled the heatsinks away which were held on with double sided tape. Unfortunately it didn't come away clean so i had to reapply some of the double sided tape to the thermal pads. Amazing how it transforms the board and gives it abit more of a futuristic look.

I also found that the original Bitspower Multi Z - Red reservoir i had since 2014 has started to crack in some places around the threads so i decided not to use it. As luck has it, OCUK had a B grade for £10! Grabbed that and its arrived but will install it tomorrow along with the XSPC Filter.

Jay85 · 30 Oct 2021 at 17:19

Waheyyy GPU block has arrived today to my surprise! Was supposed to come Monday but DPD for some reason delivered it today instead! Well happy and managed to get the loop finished and bled today. On the note of bleeding, what a nightmare! Took nearly an hour to finally get rid of the last air bubble. Lots of tilting and releasing the top port on the res to let the air bubbles out.

I think the biggest issue was the trapped air inside the pump/block, you could hear all the bubbles inside moving around but unable to escape. Tried varying speeds with little effect...

Last resort was... and i don't advise anyone do this or try this at home! I unscrewed the top very slowly, allowing me just enough movement to wiggle the top of the block which allowed the air bubbles to escape out the side. After attempts and it worked, no more air and fully bled! So yeah don't try this at home unless you're confident!

Some build pics, mounting the block to the gpu was easy. A couple of screws to remove the original heatsink, literally 4 for the fan shroud and the retention screws holding it onto the pcb. Mounting it was just as easy, 4 x M3 screws and washers and that's it done. I took the block off once just to check coverage of the thermal paste and contact pressure. All looked good so proceeded to plumbing.

Sticking with Deionised water from Halfords for this rig, cba dealing with any build up in the future although it would have been nice to add some colour to the system. Maybe in the future?

The GPU run looks pretty majestic don't you think? Kinda miss soft tubing, was a pleasure to build this over the past few weeks! Shame its come to an end.

Defy Belief · 6 Nov 2021 at 21:51

Looks sweet, I'd imagine silent too with the 1060, bliss

Jay85 · 7 Nov 2021 at 10:03

Defy Belief said:
Looks sweet, I'd imagine silent too with the 1060, bliss

Super silent! Been playing a fair bit of Mario Kart Wii, Golden Eye N64 and using it as a media centre to watch movies. For an old machine, it boots super fast, it's actually faster than my main rig :cry:

. Considering swapping the 3570k out for a 3770k to give it a bit more life.

mickyflinn · 7 Nov 2021 at 10:17

Impressive

Nice job.