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Abandoning Coolermaster ATC-201(Praetorian) for STACKER. Pls Advise

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Scroatdog

Member
Joined
Mar 12, 2004
Location
San Diego
Hello all.

Well, after six months of watercooled bliss with the ATC-201, I want a more powerful cooling solution. The BIM II doesn't offer enough cooling, in my opinion. Additionally, my cheap-as* "Bytecc" 5.25 enclosure for my Western Digital 160 hard drive keeps causing it to become corrupted and unreadable..... I only have room for two hard drives in my comp (both in 5.25 bays), I've got a DVD burner occupying bay 3, and the Vanec Nexus occupying bay 4. My entire 3.5 section is taken up by the rad, so I'm all outta Schlitz...

I'm taking a hard look at the Stacker. I'm wondering if anyone's fit a double heatercore in the front. Don't want to mod the case at all. I want to fit a double heatercore in the front, with 4 fans push/pull, and use the rest of my H20 setup (Swifty MCW 5002, DD Maze 4 GPU, Swifty MCP-650, DD res).
Maybe I can use the BIM II in the loop as well for cooling the water after the CPU and before the GPU??? Maybe that would kill the flowrate too much though.

If anyone's fit a double heatercore in there, please let me know. Seems like the standard size is 6" wide, which I don't think would fit that 5.25 bay.

Thanks
 
I don't have a double hc in my stacker, and the opening is only about 5.75" wide. It's hard to measue exactly how wide the opening in front is because of the drive rails and all the little bumps they create.
 
Thanks for the reply. I'm hoping someone will stumble along this post who has a double heatercore in their CM Stacker.

If it won't work, I guess I could always shove a Thermochill 120.2 in there.....but from all accounts I hear that a heatercore is superior to the standard rad, with very little flow restriction.....
 
seaborn said:
It would fit if you cut out the rail area for the section you need.


Yeah. I was hoping to avoid that, though. I'm not a very saavy metalsmith, plus I kind of wanted everything to fit with no mods.
 
If I am counting correctly you'd be using 4 of the 11 available 5.25 bays. I just measured and you'd have approximately 12" of space by the aforementioned 5.75" width. If you can find a dual core that would fit inside that space, you'd be good to go without any cutting.

You could put the BIM II in the back where the optional second PSU goes, but your tubing may be all over the place.
There is a 120mm exhaust fan in the back where you may be able to fit a BIX or small hc.
 
teamgreen said:
If I am counting correctly you'd be using 4 of the 11 available 5.25 bays. I just measured and you'd have approximately 12" of space by the aforementioned 5.75" width. If you can find a dual core that would fit inside that space, you'd be good to go without any cutting.

You could put the BIM II in the back where the optional second PSU goes, but your tubing may be all over the place.
There is a 120mm exhaust fan in the back where you may be able to fit a BIX or small hc.

Thanks for the reply. I saw your thread on your stacker. Nice job. I have NO idea where I'd find a rad that was 5.75" x 12", that I would have to do no modding/cutting of the barbs for 1/2 ID tubing. LOL. Like I said, I am no metalsmith at all. And a shroud for that??? I'd have to jury rig something myself.

Maybe I can go with a DTEK like you've got in the front AND in the back, or try to use my dual 80mm. If I went from the CPU outlet to the dual 80, then to the GPU inlet, I might be able to cut out some hose clutter. ARRGH!! :bang head :bang head But would the dual 80 and a DTek cut my flow??? Would two DTek's cut my flowrate??? :bang head :bang head I've got the same pump as you BTW, and mine does not make alot of noise. I think you got a bum pump.

I just wanted to have a nice dual heatercore fit nice and neat in the front, and leave me with 4 bays, plus the power switch bay. For extra hard drives, I was planning on hard-mounting the 3 to 4 thing on the bottom of the case somewhere.

My girlfriend is getting me this case for my birthday, along with the side window panel and crossflow fan. She's going to strategically get it for me right before my birthday and right before she goes out of town for three weeks. She figures this way I'll have it all done by the time she gets back, thereby saving her many many trips to Fry's. (Most girls do not like Fry's very much...)
 
The hc I have up front is not a Dtek core.
I don't know what kind it is. I just went to Autozone and looked through their parts book and found a hc that fit. Since 12x5.75 is an unusual size I'd recommend that you do the same. Be careful, though, as the books rarely have prices and often have many cores that would fit. I found the foreign ones cost substantially more than the Ford/GM ones.
Also it is fairly easy to tell single/dual pass hc's from the pictures.

Everything extra you add to your loop will restrict flow. I'd think having two cores + extra tubing would add more restriction opposed to a single, large core.

I made my shroud with cardboard and duct tape. I, too am not a metal/plastic/oranyothersmith so ghetto cardboard and good 'ol duct tape did me right.

From what I've read since I started complaining about the pump is that they are not as silent as may claim they are and the noise (about an average 80mm fan) is normal. How does yours compare?

You're girlfriend is pretty clever. My ex-grilfriend steered clear of the computer and was not foolish enough to encourge me into spending more time with it.

Good luck.
 
HAAHAHHAHAA Is that why she's an "Ex"?? :p

I've got 4 80mm fans on my BIMII, an 80mm exhaust, and an 80mm blowhole fan, all wired to my Vantec Nexus fan controller. Turning down the fans to minimum, I cannot hear the pump over my Western Digitals....

Did you have to mod the barbs on your core???? Or did you just boil the tubes and force them over???
BTW, this is my current setup:

H20%20Upgrade%20036.jpg


VERY cramped. Hard drives are in Zalman heatpipe 5.25 coolers since the 3 1/2 bay is taken up by the BIMII
 
nah, my ex was really cool. She didn't try to stop me from doing anything, except smoking. I was exaggerating and making stuff up for dramatic effect.

I didn't remove the pipes from the core. I just cut them to length and forced the tubing over and secured with worm-drive clamps. It'd be more secure and cooler looking if I'd attached my own barbs, but I didn't have a torch.

One of these weekends I'm going to go cable crazy and clean my wiring up.
 
There's some dude named 2Fresh who sells modded Bonneville cores on teh For Sale section on [H]. Apparently it's the same double heater core you can get on voyeur mods. That double core is 5 3/4 wide. Wonder if that'll fit. Taking a ruler to my DVD burner here (since I dont have the stacker yet), 5 3/4 is about 1/8 longer than the drive.

I looked up the specs on the 77 bonneville core and it actually says 5 5/8. If that's the case, it just might barely fit in there.
 
5 5/8 should fit. I think my hc is the same size and I have cardboard along the ends for a snug fit.

Is there a stacker in the store that you can measure?
 
Unfortunately, no. No Stacker in any stores here in San Diego. I check Fry's all the time, but they don't have it.
 
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