My new rig, not 56k friendly.

[Prisoner1138]

Basically a couple months ago I wanted to upgrade my current computer(pentiumd 805, 7900gs, 2gb ddr-667, etc etc), and I realized that this was technically the same computer I've had since like 1998, just gradual upgrades here and there. So I decided to treat myself to a brand new system, not a single salvaged part, no upgrades, just pure new-ness. There was one catch, no led's, cold cathodes, uv paint, fans with text, fog machines, excess chrome, etc. I've done all that in the past(well, no fog machine), and I'm older now and don't want a computer that I could use as the centerpiece from the ceiling in a dance club.

I opted to go for watercooling, not because I needed to, I just thought "never done it, so wtf not?" and so far this is what we have:

Thermaltake Armor VA8000BWS

I got this model specifically because I didn't want the silly 25mm fan on the side, the new armor+ is ugly, and I needed some openings on the side to work with. Aside from painting the interior of the case flat black(3 coats of primer, 4 coats of flat black enamel, so sanding specifically because I like the rough finish). I also removed the window and replaced it with an AC Ryan modders mesh panel, I cut the rough shape of the window so it would fit, as well as let me put the original clips for the window in place so the exterior looked nice. Unfortunately the holes in the mesh were so big that it wouldn't hold, so I had to use epoxy putty to keep the mesh in place. The back side of the panel with the mesh looks horrible, but you'll never see it.

Intel e6850ES G0 stepping CPU

I don't want a quad core processor, was willing to drop the cash for the 6850, saw an ES on ebay for 80 bucks less with a few minutes to go and won it. It was the logical choice at the time.

MSI 8800GT OC 512MB

This is the one from the infamous dell deal back in November. After enoguh screaming into the phone I got an additional 50 bucks off, total cost $157 plus shipping. It may have taken me 2 months to get it, but at that prices who cares.

Corsair HX620w

No flashy lights, "bling", just functional with good specs.

Abit IP-35 Pro

It had to be an Asus or Abit board, the Abit seemed more appealing

2x 150GB WD Raptor

Got a good deal in the classified section here, couldn't pass 'em up. I might add something else for bulk storage later, but I have a raid 5 nas already anyway, I'm not worried about it.

2x1GB Corsair Dominator 8500 DDR2

They were reasonably priced, and the dominator airflow fan was cheap and pretty quiet. Just had to peel the ugly blue sticker off the top. I figured the extra headroom of 1066 over 800 would be nice to avoid worrying about the ram not keeping up.

The watercooling consists of:

IC Diamond compound
D-Tek Fuzion CPU block with nozzle kit
Swiftech MCW60 VGA block
Swiftech MCP355 pump with Petra's top
Swiftech MCR220-qp (mounted in the front with velcro)
Swiftech MCR120-qp
Swiftech MC8800 SMC ramsinks (I screwed up the sticky tape on my first attempt, didn't clean the oil from the stock thermalpad off the ram good enough. So I wound up using the thermalpaste and superglue method. Yes, I tested, I can still pop them off if I really need to. The gel superglue I used really helped with controlling the amount I put down)
7/16" Masterkleer tubing
2x DangerDen Acetal fillports(one in the top where the usb used to be, I never cared for front or top mounted usb and audio, and it hides it. And the other is actually after the outlet on the pump as a drain, just kinda tucks into the case but can be pulled out if needed)
Anti-kink coils(black)
Yate loon 120mm and 92mm medium speed fans all around
Noise isolator VR 3.5" 4x fan speed controller
Swiftech Radbox


And now that I got that out of the way, PICTURES! (Please ignore the messy garage in the background of some pics. I hate my roommates, they won't clean up after themselves.)

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj122/prisoner1138/case1.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj122/prisoner1138/case2.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj122/prisoner1138/case3.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj122/prisoner1138/case4.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj122/prisoner1138/case5.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj122/prisoner1138/case6.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj122/prisoner1138/case7.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj122/prisoner1138/case8.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj122/prisoner1138/case9.jpg
I'll be updating this again once I have more hardware and assembly done.

I didn't bother with pics of the case before it was painted, because we all know what the inside of a TT armor looks like.

[pejcao]

3 coats of primer + 4 of paint sure pay of!!!
That interior/back looks like military epoxy protection coat! :attn:

Did you disassembled the whole thing to get primer/paint to every single part?

[Prisoner1138]

I removed the drive cages and the clips for the 5.25 bays as you can see in the first few pics. I also took off the stock io plate(who ever uses that anyway?), as well as the mounting bracket for the psu incase I need to flip it.

The front bezel was easy to remove, and then the original black parts(top and bottom) I taped off with a plastic trashbag so they could keep their original finish. The problem was when I removed the top plastic, I realized I could still see silver through the grate ontop, so I taped it all off except the plastic part and the mesh, and painted that too with just 2 coats.

It may look like a military type coating, but it's not. If I could have found flat black appliance epoxy paint, I would have used that. Now there's a couple nicks in the paint inside where drives go, behind the mobo(none of it's even really visible). If I wanted to do more than 3 rattle cans in terms of cost, the next option would have been powder coating, but that would have been 100 bucks easy.

The interior finish actually feels kinda like 400 grit or so sandpaper. it's weird, but I like it.

Another thing to note. Before I put the anti-kink coils on, the line between the pump and the videocard was kinked in 4 places. I pulled the card out to straighten it, put the coils on, and no more kinks. Those things are definitely a wise investment.

edit: you can actually see the paint I used and some of the disassembled parts in the 7th pic

[satandole666]

Looks good so far. Can't wait to see the final pics.

These kind of threads make me want to clean up my build and post pictures too.

[FallenCow]

Great job on the paint. Looks even and smooth! Very clean so far..can't wait for the final pics.

[Prisoner1138]

The finished product is gonna be a while, still undecided on what ram to go with(looking at 2GB, if anyone has any suggestions, throw 'em my way). The loop will be completed and PSU installed probably on Wednesday.

[Jas]

Links to pics broken?

[Prisoner1138]

changed the host, should work now.

[Stratus_ss]

the pics look fine to me

[Prisoner1138]

I dunno, I could load 'em in firefox jsut fine but IE choked for whatever reason, I switched from my isps server to photobucket so it shouldn't be a problem.

[Dak9767]

What paint did you use? The case turned out great. Also did you use semi-gloss?

[Prisoner1138]

What paint did you use? The case turned out great. Also did you use semi-gloss?

Rustoleum professional flat black, no topcoat.

[Jas]

Looks great! Got any pics of the machine up and running?

Would love to see how it looks lit up through that mesh!

[Prisoner1138]

That's just it, there won't be any lights. No bling in this box at all(I was actually tempted to flat black the mounting plate for the d-tek block as well).

edit: I guess I could toss a couple LED's in there just for the sake of taking a picture at some point, but they won't be left in there.

[Jas]

It would look pretty cool if you had a couple green LEDs in there, just to give some eary ambient light.

[QuietIce]

I think the black & blue look is great! Screw the lights - don't change a thing ... :):thup:

[MattODoom]

Looks good - can I get a pic of how the radiator is secured in there... or it just standing in there?

[Prisoner1138]

It's velcro'd in place until I find a problem with the velcro.

[Prisoner1138]

Got the loop together, and running. I noticed a few things.

1. Filling an empty loop is a tedious pain in the ass
2. Flat black paint makes leaks REALLY obvious(of course I'm going to run it for 24 hours once the spillage dries up, leave some toilet paper here and there to check for leaks
3. Waiting for the loop to bleed itself out is annoying. I keep checking it every 2 minutes(a watched pot never boils)
4. Pentosin in the water(the correct mixture) makes for an annoying sticky mess I'll have to clean up later
5. The fan on the POS PSU I'm using to run the pump right now, is louder than the pump

I already snapped a pic of it with the lines full of air bubbles, I'll get another one later and post them both.

Here's the loop after it was just filled. Can't see through the lines at all, damn bubbles
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj122/prisoner1138/case10.jpg

Here's the loop again after about 45 minutes, the lines still aren't clear, but they're getting there
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj122/prisoner1138/case11.jpg

[FallenCow]

Nice setup! Bleeding goes MUCH faster w/ a res, but then again you save some space with t-line.

[Prisoner1138]

It only took 3-4 hours, not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Right now I'm tyring to see what I can get the CPU to post at. I can find my windows keys, but not my discs... that's aggravating.

[QuietIce]

That's about the right bleed time - 45 min to the "micro-bubble" stage. Those take a while to clean out completely. It's a little late now but shutting off the rig for 10 min or so helps.

If you want a slightly faster bleed next time get a 1/2x1/2x3/4" copper T and, since you're using 7/16" tubing, add a couple of short pipe lengths to the 1/2" sides. It's tough for any bubbles to get past that 3/4" T and it holds about half as much water as a MicroRes so, IMO it's the best of both worlds ... :)

[Prisoner1138]

Actually, I did that too. Just made sense, let the bubbles settle and get bigger again, they float up the t-line faster.

edit: I was able to get under the desk and snap a pic. You can see the cables behind the tubes in some spots, it's a bit clearer than the camera makes it look. And that is actually up and running, even though the memory cooler looks still.

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj122/prisoner1138/case12.jpg

No wire management at all yet, but I'm not ready to do that at this point.

[LucifurFox]

why are you covering all the lines with that anti kink stuff? just a personal preference?

[narcotis]

What lind of paint did you use?
i wish i would have went that far with my TT armor as to paint it, looks amazing.

[EmAn]

why are you covering all the lines with that anti kink stuff? just a personal preference?



Another thing to note. Before I put the anti-kink coils on, the line between the pump and the videocard was kinked in 4 places. I pulled the card out to straighten it, put the coils on, and no more kinks. Those things are definitely a wise investment.


p.s. It is looking great I have though about just a flat black no frills setup but with ultimate performance, but before that can happen i must get money!

[Prisoner1138]

why are you covering all the lines with that anti kink stuff? just a personal preference?

As EmAn quoted, because I had kinks in my lines. There were a bunch just between the pump and the gpu block, another kink on the line between the 120 rad and the cpu block, and probably 2 between the cpu block and the 240 rad but I didn't bother spending the time to check and put the coils on anyway. I could have just used a couple extra inches of tubing here and there, but I'd rather just spend a few bucks for the anti-kink coils and go that route. As for doing everything, aside from making it looks a bit more uniform(instead of having lines here and there without them, or only covering part of a line, etc) and it's not like I was gonna save the extra length of coils I had for something else.

Besides, I paid 7.98 for 80 inches at frozencpu, that's pretty cheap. Maybe not the best price on coils, but cheap in general.



And I posted what paint I used farther up in the thread, one of the cans is in a pic too. It's really not that hard to get a decent looking finish with spraypaint. Just gotta remember lots of light coats instead of 1-2 heavy coats. It may take longer, but it'll look better. Now a gloss finish... that's a tedious job of sanding between coats I was not going to bother with.

[Prisoner1138]

Here's a pic of the backside of the mesh panel so you can see how it was that I attached it in place of the window. Those gray wads are the epoxy putty, and it's quite secure. The original bits used to hold the window in place are also covered in epoxy putty to help anchor it in place.

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj122/prisoner1138/case13.jpg

It looks fugly, but it won't be seen when it's on the case.

[Prisoner1138]

FINISHED!

Not the best wire management, but it gets the job done

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj122/prisoner1138/wires_back.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj122/prisoner1138/wires_inside.jpg

And now, the whole long tiring annoying, but fruitful endeavor is done for now:

http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj122/prisoner1138/side_finished.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj122/prisoner1138/front_finished.jpg

[QuietIce]

Doesn't look all that bad - all the important places are getting plenty of air! :):thup:


Now that everything is settled out how are the temps and OC ...?

[Prisoner1138]

3.87ghz @1.52v 35 idle 58 loaded with orthos. Can't get past 3.87 no matter the voltage, and it's not FSB related either.

[GTFouts]

You're going to love the water, keeps everything nice and cool. Looks fabulous for your first time going water. You truely should consider a res, maybe in the future. It is amazing how fast it bleeds the air out. What takes you 3 to 4 hours will turn it into 3 to 4 min, cept for micro bubbles of course. And squeezing the tubing gets rid of most of those, the rest can work their way out whenever. Once you get the pump to kick in with a steady input of water, which is why you want the res feeding the pump, it pushes all air to the res in a heartbeat without re-introducing it back into the loop. Just a thought for a future upgrade is all.

[voigts]

straightforward loop, especially for a first timer. It sure looks a lot better than my first loop (laughs to myself at the memory...).

I would have probably used a t instead of a Y for the drain so that the pump flow isn't pushing directly into the drain, but that is a minor thing.

[Prisoner1138]

I thought about that, but due to the placement it seemed it'd be easier to use the Y and then pull the drain outside the chassis, where a T would mean I'd have to bend the drain to keep it in a normal position(possibly putting extra stress somewhere).

[SolidxSnake]

Very clean loop. Looks real nice :) Have fun with the water. You'll never go back permanently ;)