Watercooling inside a coolermaster ATC-200

[R0CK3TM4NN]

I have an ATC-200 (the predecessor to the Praetorian) and want to fit a w/c'ing setup but I'm wracking my brain as to where to place the radiator. This case is an exellent air-cooling design but I'm beginning to believe its going to be tough to fit a rad in here without some creative hacking. I just saw this pic in another thread:

http://img119.exs.cx/img119/3456/19kp.jpg

It appears to be an ATC-210 (with the glass front)...overall a very similar design to what I have. I'm looking to cool a 3.2E, the NB on the mobo in my sig, and a 6800 GT. I highly doubt 1 BIX 80mm will do the trick. Any ideas?

[Ross]

Unless you go with an external setup, some case cutting will be required on the CM cases with that chassis. There are really only a few options to utilize existing fan holes for rads: 80mm rad on the rear, 80mm rad on top or 2x80mm rad on the front. I've done all, including the 2x80mm rad in front and a 1x80mm rad on top in parallel. It worked pretty well.

The problem on the rear fan hole is that only one 25mm deep fan can be used on the rad. One on each side in a push/pull setup will stick over the CPU WB and make tube routing all but impossible. I am not sure if your case is a little taller, but maybe you could fit a 2x80mm rad on the rear area if you do a little cutting...mine was about .5" short and .25" too narrow to fit it there, so I opted for the front.

With the 2x80mm rad on the front, forget putting HDDs in the 3.5" cage. If you have room in the 5.25" bays, they can be mounted up there instead, but I mounted mine on the side of the 3.5" cage as shown. One other comment with the rad in the front is that again, fans on the rear are no problem, but if you want push/pull setup on it and keep the stock fan bracket like I did, the front fans need to be 15mm thick to fit behind stock grill. I used some old 80x15mm fans that Swiftech sold for that.

I more recently bit the bullet and cut a mondo hole on top for a 2x120mm rad. I lost the top 5.25" bay, but it sure does cool. In hind sight, I probably should've just cut 2 x 120mm round holes for the fans, but it's kinda nice with the entire rad exposed up top.

BIM2 rad mounted in front:
http://home.austin.rr.com/rossmisc/images/cm-bim2.jpg

Back of BIM2 in front (note MCP-600 pump mounted to the PSU cage):
http://home.austin.rr.com/rossmisc/images/cm-bim22.jpg

Loop (note HDDs mounted to side of 3.5" cage):
http://home.austin.rr.com/rossmisc/images/cm-bim23.jpg

2x120mm rad mounted on top:
http://home.austin.rr.com/rossmisc/images/bighole.jpg

[Archer36]

Nice very clean and simple, I LIKE

[Ross]

Thanks ;)

[R0CK3TM4NN]

Wow, very nice Ross. I was thinking about the BIM2 setup for the front intake as the easiest to setup, but I'm not sure how effective it is in cooling the setup that I have (or am getting, as I specified in the first post). I'm leaning towards expanding the blow hole to accomodate a 120 MM BIX. I'm also curious to know as to how you mounted your pump, and in what direction the fans are blowing. If the cooling is effective enough, I'd really like to try the BIM2 setup. Plus your HD mounting scheme is slick as well. I've always wanted to use those mounts in my case...

[Ross]

It actually did a fairly decent job (better than anything you'd get on air), but adding the single BIM up top in parallel helped. I ran a 3.2E on that setup and got it up to a 3997MHz OC, but idle temps were noticeably warmer than the case temps (not so on the 2x120mm rad :)). You probably would be better off with a 120mm rad of some type for a Prescott and a 3 WB loop. You can dig around for all the rad specs and whatnot, but basically, more rad surface area means more cooling potential.

That pic in your first post wasn't working before, but now that it is, it looks very similar to scanido's old setup, tho he was just cooling his CPU. http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=216124 He has/had the ATC-110, which I believe is 1" deeper than my ATC-111. Other than that, they are pretty much the same case. IIRC he said it was tricky to get the 120 rad up there...you will definitely need to trim the PSU cage.

In any event, even in that setup, it looks like the top 5.25" bay will be useless for anything except a HDD or a controller of some type that's shallow, so if you're gonna give up anyway, why not just make it a 2x120mm rad? :D

Back of the BIM2 with tubing. Through the 3.5" cage there is a TEE...
http://home.austin.rr.com/rossmisc/images/cm-bim24.jpg

...that connects the rad to a Swiftech F&B that has been removed for the drive tray that it came in.
http://home.austin.rr.com/rossmisc/images/cm-bim25.jpg

This was how the pump was mounted (new setup = 2x MCP-350 pumps). Bottom hole drilled through the PSU cage and the top is secured by a fat fiber washer, wedging the edge of the PSU cage between it and the pump. You can see I had to notch the cage for a little extra clearance of the tubing.
http://home.austin.rr.com/rossmisc/images/cm-bim26.jpg

These are the "Swiftech" 80x15mm fans on the front of the BIM2. 80x25mms were on the rear for a push/pull setup. All fans on the rad blowing into the case (rear and blowhole fans were exhaust). Screws go through the front fans, through the stock fan brackets and into the rad to hold it all solid.
http://home.austin.rr.com/rossmisc/images/cm-bim27.jpg

Just a shot of the front with the grill on. The stock grill is probably more restrictive than anything. It looks really good, but replacing it with modders mesh or something would seriously improve performance of the rad. IIRC, between the stock grill in/out was a 2-3C diff in temp. With the current 2x120mm rad on top, the 120s are the intakes for the case with the 2 front and 1 rear 80mms working exhaust.
http://home.austin.rr.com/rossmisc/images/cm-bim28.jpg

And just for good measure, a pic of the case buttoned up in this config. I have blue cathodes, but they come out looking like crap in every pic, so they are off in this one :rolleyes:
http://home.austin.rr.com/rossmisc/images/cm-bim29.jpg