wbc's first rig...

[whitebloodcell]

When I get it all up and running I'll post plenty of picts and overclocking results, but for now...I need a little help. But first I'll post some specs, I have all the components here, and have put most of it together. This is the first computer I've built so things have gone wrong in the process, its taken me 3 days to get this far :p

CM Stacker
Seasonic S12 500W
DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice
2x 512 TwinMOS SP which I have been told do 1.5-2-2-? 260FSB @ 3.4V
Hitachi Deskstar T7K250
XFX nVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT

Cooling
Thermochill 120.2 + San Ace 120s
Swiftech MCW6002-64
Danger Den MAZE4 GPU
Danger Den D5 Pump
7/16" ID Tygon

all on a nice Dell 2005FPW


http://www.cryo-laboratory.com/upload/userfiles/whitebloodcell/WC%20Setup.jpg



I have set up the WC loop and am now leak testing and bleeding it. My first problem was that I kinda got the pump inlet and outlet mixed up, so my tubing run had to be uneccessarily awkkward. Do you think it is worth redoing this tubing? I will be re-positiong the Rad in the top of the case in 3 Weeks time, aswell as making a place for the Fillport and lapping the base of the Blocks and reapplying Artic Silver properly. I have not done a good job this time round, but for now I just want to have a computer up and running. I also don't have much tubing left, and its hard to get 7/16"ID tubing over here. Luckily MVC helped me out with this lot. Thanks man.

There seems to be an obscene amount of bubbles in the loop, and I am sure there are some large ones in the rad. Am I bleeding this right? I just have the Fillport/T Line at the highest point in the loop and I am running the pump hoping they will come out.

[Fighter2a]

The bubbles will bleed out just give it some time. Redoing the tubing is up to you. You will have a lot of space in the stacker.

[whitebloodcell]

Where would you reccomend I put the pump? Despite the large amounts of room I am having trouble. When I set it up before filling I had in the the bottom 3 Drive bays zip tied to the bottom of a 4 in 3 Module. How are you supposed to mount it to a case?
Since I have the Rad in the bottom with the fans underneath pullling the barbs for the Rad and Pump are within 1 Inch of each other, so when putting the tube on I had

T Line>Pump>GPU>Rad>CPU>T Line. This the easiest option with my incorrect knowledge of which was pump inlet and outlet. It looks pretty bad though. Goes from the pump, inbetween the Barbs of the Rad to the GPU Block, then back to the Rad, then from the Rad going behind the Graphics Card to the CPU Block

[voigts]

If your rad is on the bottom (which is perfectly fine), then my guess is that you would want pump-cpu-gpu-rad-tline-pump kind of flowing in a circle path. That way you would have the t-line on the pump inlet and the routing would be simpler. The pump looks like it has the sticky pad that you can just peel and stick, or you simply drill a couple of holes and mount it to the case with bolts/nuts. The bubbles will eventually work out, however your cpu block looks like the outlet is laying on its side. The cpu block outlet needs to be facing up so that the air gets out of the block.

[whitebloodcell]

I'll go position it better then. Should this be the same for the GPU Block aswell? Does it matter which barb is use for inlet and outlet on the Blocks? Should I try and postion the rad in a particular to help bleeding?

[whitebloodcell]

So I've fitted everything, plugged it all in and I'm not having much luck. Firstly, there is no picture coming to the monitor, jackall. Secondly, as soon as I turn the comp on the Mobo starts beeping, intermittently every 2 seconds maybe. The beep lasts about 1 second.

On the status light left to right the first three are lit red. Any idea what I need to do?

[noxqzs]

The orientation of the inlet/outlet on the GPU doesn't matter, however on the swiftech, you want the flow going into the center and out the side barbs.

The DFI problem is a whole other walk in the park. grab a stiff drink and get ready to do some reading as you are not the only one with the problem.

http://www.ocforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=130

From what I have read, the motherboard needs an updated BIOS to run properly with the Venice series.



ps... on the bottom right of your posts there is an EDIT button. use it to update your posts instead of double posting. some people get bothered by that.

[Fighter2a]

White, use only 1 stick of ram and put it in the orange slot closest to the cpu. If that doesn't work move it around and see if you can get it to boot. If you can get it to boot then you can update the bios with a CD. Post if you are still having trouble. Also I just remembered that mine wouldn't boot because I had a usb mouse plugged in. ONLY plug the keyboard in and make sure it's not a usb keyboard.

[Shuruga2]

Do you have a fan that you could plug into the mobo's cpu_fan socket?
Does the video card require its own power line?

[whitebloodcell]

Righty, I've got the latest Bios on a Floppy ready for use. I took out one stick of Ram and plugged a Fan into the CPU fan socket. Turned her on, and huzzah, no irritating bleeping. However still no picture on the monitor. Which I find odd, I know that one of the DVI ports on my GPU do not work, but neither seem to at the moment. I shall try with another cable.

The monitor detects that it is attached I think. Since with no cable it complains of no DVI signal.

Anyone know what I need to press to update the bios from a floppy blindly?

@noxqzs - I know the edit button, just I needed to bump my thread aswell since I wanted attention. :p

@Fighter2a - I only have a keyboard plugged in (not USB, whatever that is, PS/2?)

Update: I kept trying with the monitor and now the bleeping is back. Sigh. Nothing changed, except one of the fans on my Rad stopped working, but that is attached to a Rheobus and shouldnt matter.

If it is relevant, I do not have the buttons from the front Panel connected to the Mobo atm, I think my soldering came lose. (I had a damaged cable)

Also I don't have the front Audio connectors connected to the sound card. Are there any jumper settings that could cause problems? Come to think of it, did I set the Master and Slave IDE Devices....maybe not. Would that matter?

[Fighter2a]

No that shouldn't matter. Move the stick of ram around and try the other one if that doesn't work. On the old bios that came with mine i could only use 1 stick in an orange slot until I updated bios. But about the picture that would have to be a video card problem I would think.

[MVC]

I don't know if this will work, but for the video, turn your monitor off. Then reboot the computer turning the monitor on just after the computer starts to boot. My Samsung 213T didn't want to display anything after a clean instal once and that "fixed" it--I think it has something to do with the internal settings for analog/digital switching and it gets stuck, but I wouldn't put money on it.

[voigts]

Something funky is going on with your GPU as you should get a some sort of display. Those beeps that you heard correspond to a certain code, called a beep code, that is telling you what the motherboard is finding that it thinks is wrong. You should be able to look this up on the DFI's website.

You probably know this, but just in case you don't, you boot using a DOS boot disk into DOS, then at the prompt with the disk inserted that has the appropriate flash utility and flash file, you type in whatever it is that DFI specifies in order to flash it. You should be able to find this on their website. You could probably do this blindly, but I wouldn't recommend it because in case something is typed wrong or you needed to input at a prompt, you wouldn't know it.

You really need to figure out the monitor issue. Do you have access to another GPU? You could always go buy a cheap VC to see if the card is bad and then take it back during the returns period if you have to. If you have a port bad on the card, you should RMA it anyway. Sounds fishy however that a brand new card would have a bad port, but it is not impossible.

Absolute worst case scenario and you simply cannot get the thing to cooperate no matter what you do, put everything on air and take it to a local computer shop and pay them to get it up at least into the BIOS where you can take it from there.

[whitebloodcell]

Hi all, some good news.

@voigts - :rolleyes: It wasnt a brand new card, I got it extremely cheap knowing it had a defect I thought I wouldnt mind. (Students don't have much money) I got the floppy ready, I just need to find out what I need to type now.

@MVC - Thanks alot man, that worked perfectly, I now have a picture. (also I got the fans today, you rock)

I had to move the stick of Ram to the orange socket furthest away from the CPU to get it to work.

Once I have updated the Bios, should I turn off the comp and put in the other stick of Ram? or wait until I have Windows installed?

On the boot screen, it didnt detect my DVD-RW drive, I got everything OEM so I don't know what jumper settings I need on the back. It is a NEC3540 if anyone knows what to set it as, if pictures would be helpful let me know.

Not exactly a problem but a question. I put some UV dye into my loop, and under UV light it doesnt exactly light up. Or at all exactly, I wasnt sure how much to put it, but it looks farely thick, is this a problem? Pictures if u want

I also wasnt sure how much antifreeze to put it. (I know I could have asked, but I was excited) so i put in one 'cap' This alright?

My loop has been running for 4 days and it still has many bubbles in it, I have twisted it around in every direction possible, what gives! They are going down but not that fast

[MVC]

Normally, once the BIOS is updated I'd turn the computer off and install the second stick of RAM and make sure the computer will POST with both installed. If you're going to have a problem with the motherboard recognizing the RAM, it's better to do if before you go through the effort of installing Windows. But, I've never used a DFI board so if someone who has experience with DFI says it should be done differently I'd follow their instructions.

My NEC 3540 was also OEM (from Newegg). It came with the jumper on CS (cable select) and was recognized fine on the first boot. If you've got more than one drive on the cable, make sure that they're both set to CS or that if one (or both) of them is designated as either Master or Slave, they are on the correct plug for how they're set--Master on the last plug on the cable and Slave on the "middle" plug on the cable. If it's hooked up correctly, go into the setup screen in BIOS and see what it says about the drive.

I've never used UV dye so I've no idea.

Most people running antifreeze use somewhere between 5%-10%. I'm running about 6%. With the T-line you don't have a lot of volume in that loop so a "cap full" is OK. A lot of anti-freeze isn't necessary unless you're mixing metals, and you aren't.

If you've still got the system plumbed like in the first picture, the main reason it's taking so long to bleed is because you've got the T-line right after the pump outlet and the water is moving very fast through the T so the air doesn't have a lot of time to get up the T-line. Since you've got the new D5, just turn the power down on the pump (red button on the back) so that the water flows slower and gives the air more time to escape. You could also pinch the tubing after the T to give the air still more time, but the "speed switch" on the pump should do it.

[whitebloodcell]

It seems to boot fine with both the sticks in now. Which is goodnews, now need to install Windows. It was refusing to boot from cd.

The way I have my drives set up is DVD-ROM Drive in the topmost bay on the end of the IDE Cable. The Nec DVDRW on the middle connection. Connected to IDE1. Currently it is only detecting the Asus DVDROM. I will go have a look, will putting the wrong jumper settings do any damage.

The system is stilled plumbed as in the first picture, I will redo it when my dad hets home (September) and I will fit the Rad in the top of the Case. It is now obviously connected to the computer now though. I'll do what you said, will it bleed better if the water goes into the tube leading to the fillport? I think it went down enough so that the water doesnt get higher than the "T"

[MVC]

You have to make sure the CD drive is in the boot path in BIOS and that it's the first drive the system looks to for an OS if you've got anything on the attached hard drive. I usually just pull everything out of the boot path except the CD drive I want to boot from and then put them back in the "correct" order after instalation. Also, if you've got more than one hard drive (too lazy to open another window to check) only connect the one you want to format/partition/install an OS on. If there's more than one drive Windows may default to installing on a partition labeled "F" or something and you can't change the drive letter of the partition with the OS--at least not easily.

Having the jumpers set wrong won't hurt anything. The most that can happen is that the BIOS and/or OS won't recognize the drive. In this case, go ahead and set the Asus drive as Master and the NEC drive as Slave and you should be fine.

There needs to be some water in the tube going up to the fillport or the system will just be sucking in air. I'd top off the fillport tube and just set the pump on it's lowest setting (jumper the ATX plug so you aren't actually running the system and creating heat while the pump is going slow) and let it run for a while. Bleeding does take a while with a T-line, which is one of the main reasons people do use reservoirs even if they do take up space and can leak.

[whitebloodcell]

The OS booting was a problem with the disc, I'll have to wait for another one now. this leaves time for me to bleed the system nicely. I'll report back when everything is up and running. More problems are undoubtedly to come

[OvaKilla]

I'll report back when everything is up and running.

bring pics with you. :)

[voigts]

Glad you got this far. It is easiest to just set all ide drive jumpers to CS (cable select) and then just plug them in the way you want them to be. The drive on the end of the cable will be the master, and the one hooked up to the one in the middle will be the slave. Also, keep your DVD drives on the same cable/channel. Don't mix hard drives and DVd/CD drives on the same IDE channel. You also want your hard drives on IDE 1, not IDE 2. The IDE connectors are usually numbered right on the MB.

[whitebloodcell]

Sorry no update yet. Trouble still rearing it's head. Sigh. I can only get the two Ramsticks to work in te top two slots for some reason. And my IDE drives still arent being detected properly, and so I cant get Windows on. I'll keep trying though.

Other problems relate to my soldering. The connector on one of my fans fell off, so I have to get all the soldering stuff out again. (harder than it sounds.)

And the wiring for the front panel, just isnt working. I used the metal things you insert into Female 3 Pin Fan Connecters to try and connect but I dont think they are long enough. I emailed, CM Europe three timesover the past 2 Weeks and no reply. So I wasnt impressed by that