Corsair 800d - dual rad build -Single loop build

As promised, an impending wall of text and pics of my first WC build...comments, critiques welcome.

First, the rig.

• Corsair 800d case
• Interl i7 920 cpu
• Asus P6X58D Premium motherboard
• Sapphire Radeon 5870 video card
• Corsair 850HX power supply
• 12GB Corsair Dominator ddr3 1600 memory
• Corsair CMXAF2 memory fan
• WD Raptor 150GB HD
• Seagate Barracuda 500GB HD

Thread references :

• Noeru's Blood project
• Closetredneck's Osiris project
• Mr. Armageddon's project
• MCP's B10 mod
• Bit-tech forum

WC / product sites used/referenced :

• Skinnee Labs
• Jab-Tech
• Petra's Tech Shop
• Sidewinder Computers
• Performance PCs
• Frozen CPU
• McMaster-Carr
• Digi-Key
• Million Dollar PC sleeving

Last but not least, the final water cooling setup :

• Thermochill PA120.3
• Swiftech MCR 220
• EK 5870 gpu waterblock
• Swiftech Apogee XT cpu waterblock
• Lamptron FC-5 fan controller
• Bistpower Mesh Radguard 360
• Danger Den Aluminum fillport [blue]
• Scythe Gentle Typhoon 1450s [x 6]
• Yate Loon 140mm Medium
• Swiftech MCP 355 pumps [x2]
• HeatKiller dual DDC acrylic pump top
• iandh StealthRes 225ml
• Gel-Stuff Vibration Absorbtion block [4"x4"]
• iandh Silver Killcoil
• PT Nuke biocide
• Primochill 3/8"ID 5/8"OD black tubing [5']
• Primochill 3/8"ID 5/8"OD blue tubing [10']
• DEMCi Magnetic 120mm filter
• MDPC-x sleeve kit
• MDPC-x Grand Bleu sleeving

Bitspower fitted! [3/8"ID 5/8"OD] :

• http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/bibpg1sishti.htmlBitspower TMB fitting [x2
• Bitspower G3/8 to G1/4 adapter [x2]
• Bitspower compression fitting [x5]
• Bitspower dual-rotary 45 degree compression fittings [x5]
• Bitspower 90-degree barb fitting
• Bitspower low profile stop fitting
• Bitspower temp sensor
• Bitspower male to male fitting [x3]
• Bitspower stubby fitting [x2]
• Bitspower barb fitting [x3]
• Bitspower extender [x2]

My initial design was going to follow Mr. Armageddon's footsteps and after some recommendations, bought the
XSPC Dual Bay, Dual Reservoir. Upon sliding it into the 800d bays ran into a problem, seen below. The middle notch of the reservoir was too shallow for the case's bay ledge. After some dremelling of the ledges, the result was highly unacceptable. Still undetermined if the reservoir is off spec as every other drive I put into the bays is flush and level.





After being miffed I cut a portion of my case up for nothing, I decided to go with a cylindrical reservoir idea, which proved to be a bit more complicated, and expensive, on the fitting/planning side. I spent more in shipping and handling after ordering what I thought would be my 'last order' only to find out I needed a spacer, or extender to get those precious milimeters or space to make things line up.

I decided to go with a black and blue theme, however, I have yet to light the inside of the case. Ordered some cable sleeving from Nils. Great sleeving, BETTER heatshrink, man that stuff really gets tight!, and great looking blue material. Nils responded to each email within a few hours and will definitely be ordering from him again, I'm huge on customer service.


After reading Dangals' cable sleeving thread I was dreading getting the project started. I have to say, other than removing PCI-e pins, everything was pretty easy. The main 24 pin proved to be much easier for some reason. Only problem is I couldnt get the heatshrink flush against the base of the wiring near the power supply, so I later used Duplicolor acrylic dye on the parts showing. I bought it at a small, local auto parts store.

It's never good when the FIRST attempt at pulling a pin out ends in the wire being detached from the pin. Was able to recrimp with some needle hose pliers, but later had to solder it since it pulled out again.


Digging the purple thimble?! Nevertheless, it helped a ton.

I wanted each rad to be on its own channel, one of the few fan controllers that I found can handle that is the Lamptron FC-5 fan controller]Lamptron FC-5[/url], which also had quite a few color options. However, not many of them look good and are too backlit. Red and the "white" which is actually bright blue, are the only two I liked and that were easy to read. Of those two, only the red was viewable at the angle from my seat to the box. Blue and black theme with a red fan controller; functionality > visual pleasure....sometimes.


Here are the rads soldered and sleeved for one channel. I just tied each fan to the next and only used one yellow wire for the RPM readings. Work fine so far and those GT 1450s are QUIET!! I am a bit unhappy with the wires showing at the tops of the fans at near the edge, but I didnt have my dye yet and the rads were installed by the time I bought it.


I bought my solder stand at radioshack, but one can also be bought here. Highly recommended!

I used .032mm dia - rosin core solder and watched a few videos online, as it was my first attempt at doing something so small.

Since I already had 2 pumps because my initial design was going to be a dual loop setup, I decided to go with a dual pump acrylic top [xspc was sold out, so I went with a HK watercool top.


Some pics showing the soldering and sleeving of the two pumps.



Blue wires were left out because I was unsure how I was going to use them, since they report RPM info to the mobo. I decided to just tuck and heatshrink them behind the case in case I want to use them in the future.

Decided to go with a Meshguard on top while I waited on some other pieces to come in and added a fill port.

Marked off, taped up and ready to cut. Started edges with dremel, finished with a jigsaw.


Inch hole saw.


Finished and installed...

Tapping the Thermochill rad with a 6-32 tap [bought at Lowes]. This was before I bought the mesh guard, which came with M4 screws...just slightly larger than 6-32 which caused me some major issues while installing [mainly ripping my hands up while 'tapping' with the socket cap screws]. Note to the wise, proper tool for the job...bought a M4 tap to install the cylinder at a later date and it would have made my job easier 10 fold on the radiator had I bought it eariler.

Top rad installed.


Note! have an extra set of hands if you are installing a top rad in a pull config! between the screw holes being slightly too small and the single fan gaskets that come with the mesh guard, this install took me about 4 hours to do. Get one side in, one of the 3 gaskets folds off a screw, get another in, a fan pops off...then again, goes back to the screw holes being a bit too small, so I deserved it.

Just hit me I didnt take any pics of the bottom rad install. Nothing new there though, was a step by step follow through of Mr Armageddon's directions.

Next up was the fitting of the of the iandh 225ml reservoir.

Used the M4 drill tap to get the placement of the clamps right.


It's a beaut, this res. Just a note to those buying one...careful with the clamps on the clear acrylic, they will mark it up if you aren't gentle, which I am not.

Slowly but surely I started to move the parts into the case for placement. I was having issues trying to come up with the pump placement and making it LOOK nice instead of just functional....


As you can see, I had quite the tight angle from the pump out to the holes going to the bottom rad.

For a bit, I was trying to NOT buy any more fittings and work with what I had, but it just wasn't working out that way.

Since the space was so tight, I decided to install some through holes. Of course, they didn't fit though...


After some digging around at the locak hardware store, I found washers that fit. They are almost the same size, both fit but the store only had 2 of bushings, so that's why I had to find the metric washer as well.


Painted black and installed...almost ran into an issue with the fan under the pump but I was able to squeeeeze it in, as you can see the fan edge bend a bit. The stick is just 1/2" wood to support where the bottom hard drive cage was.

h


Initial placement of the killcoil, but as you will see....it slides down the fitting/tube later.

Was time to attach the water blocks. Decided to use some MX-3 instead of the usual AC5 I use and have no complaints at all, so far. We'll see if it dries out like AC does over time...

Installing the EK 5870 waterblock....100% acetone to remove the stock gunk from the cpu/gpu.




Of course I ran into another spacing issue. The compression fitting was hitting against the graphics card and couldnt be tightened all the way. I remember reading a post somewhere and the guy bought a minispacer to fill the gap...as you can see, that didnt work for me either and had to use an extender.


Problem solved!

Distilled water, silver kill coil and PT nuke laying in wait...


Yes, bought way too much water, only needed half a gallon but can never have enough I suppose.

On the bottom rad, I went with stubby fittings because every mm of flexibility was needed. It was important for me to keep the 140mm fan blowing on the pumps, so spacing was tight. As you can see, it worked out pretty well.



shall be back later to finish the post off.

Testing the fan controller with a jumped, 2nd power supply.



All ready for the leak test.



5 hours later...no problems. Thankfully.

Cable management behind the case. Didn't do as good as a job as I would have liked, but compared to my old builds, this is a gem.



Final, full shot of the build. Here you can see where the silver coil wound up. Not a big issue, but quite amusing it weaseled it's way down there. Guess with 2 355s pushing the water, it didn't stand a chance where it was.


Close up.


I cut another support that I will be putting under the video card. Not happy at all with it's "sag".


With the side panel on.

A few random shots of the sleeving and system...



Here you can see the killcoil slipping into the tubing.
Also a shot of the fittings between the pump and reservoir, although its not a great shot.

GPU block..

So, that's it.

A few thoughts about my first build...

I didn't plan nearly enough, despite Con's advice, and I paid for it, in time...and mainly in the wallet [because of all the shipping and handling]. Next build will be planned out to the millimeter by part , case, fitting. Hell, half the fun in it all was the buying and trying of all the parts.

Even though I ordered a few LED lights to put in, I didn't do so yet. Mainly got to the point where I wanted to get the computer up and running, stable, at stock speed before doing anything fancy. Ill be venturing in to put the video card support in soon and might see if the lights are worth doing. Unfortunately, the case is sitting between my desk side and a wall, so the side can't be seen anyway.

All in all everything went pretty well, and the few snags I came across, weren't a huge issue in the long run.

Thanks for checking out the wall of text and images...hopefully it didn't bog people down too much in load times and someone gets something from the thread. I tried to link as much as possible so people could bookmark this and use it as a reference [like i did to MANY other threads] when need be.

Any comments or questions just throw them up in the thread.

Thanks.

G

Veru nice job !

Amazing Job , very clean looking .
I never have the time to do what you have done .

Do people stare are your computer ? only half the ppl have the guts to say WTF is that thing ? Why is there a raditor on your computer

Looking nice Gotts,
Only thing is why does the cable are infront of the res and not under? it would look nicer/cleaner
Temps?

Job well done , very nice pics as well

Great job, and a great step by step log.

I VOTE STICKY!