Well the 24 hour leak test went great and it literally took 3 seconds of the pump turned on for the bubbles to clear out, everything is crystal clear. I am 90% done and all I need now is to wire the ccfl's to a on/off switch on the back and mod the side window. Here's some pics to hold you over:
Here you can also make out how I water cooled the GPU, I threw on the universal block over the bottom reference cooler base plate that covers most of the PCB. I'll be doing some benching later and hopefully it keeps it cool.
I will be finishing it up soon and I'll post the final pictures in a few hours. Tell me what you guys think
Hi, nice to meet you. I'm new here.
You did a GREAT work! I'm less willing of working hours and my project is taking a bit of time (mounths).
By case I have the same phantom and the same gpu as you do
And also already bought a universal gpu EK waterblock.
I was worrying about to mount it without additional heatsinks, I was also thinking of making a transparent videocard cover like the original of xfx to use both the original fan and the waterblock. I found this thread searching info about cooling the HD6870. And found much more.
I'm not sure to understand what you mean with the gpu cooling (maybe if you'd like, add a picture of it), but if you do keeped the original plate wouldn't you get better temps without that piece? That is made to work with a fan spinning air through, but without fast airflow it avoid's the card of beeing cooled by the low case airflow.
It's just my idea. Maybe I'm wrong.
I'm glad to know your temps don't go over 70° so I know I will not burn my videocard too
And I can order wat's left. I was looking for a while for this info about hd6870.
My project is far to be completed. I bought a 140 radiator, I cud fix it putting 2 fans on top of it, the case goes through the radiator and the fans.
As you can see here
So the fans are on the top of the two 180mm holes, and the radiator attached on them.
I didn't think about your way, also I'm not used to do manual works.
the tube is also too hard for watercooling and pushes the radiator up.
(Yes i found a very bad tube!)
As you can see here
this is the view from the top
and the cpu
as you can see I still have to place the uv led on the floor.
Also I have no idea in which way it is better to fix the led cable and how to position the led.
I pay 15$ for every order and wait about 4-7 days so I was waiting to know exactly wat to buy before placing the next order.
Now thanks you I have a better Idea.
Maybe it's of interest. I mounted the watercooling system in a way that it uses the thermosiphon effect. The warm water goes up in the radiator, and circulates by itself, cools down, and goes down to the cpu again. On idle I have about 43-45° celsius. At 20% I have 50°. At 50% load, temps get to 60°. It's not a system to use at full load obviously (85-90°) but it's ok for surfing, downloading and making little works on the pc.
To better this system I might put the radiator outside, on the top back of the pc. I think having more vertical distance between cpu and rad makes the circulation faster. Also I will buy one of the best thermalpaste.
Then...
As sleeping in the room beside I was disturbed by the stand-by led, and uncapable of turning off the fans, I thought to use a fan controller (lamptron) with 4 line out, to regulate or put off the following:
-Innovatek waterpump (yes it cools down with pump off),
-leds that I put inside on a led controller, and the one of the phantom inbuilt controller (2 of the 4 pin connector of the phantom fancontroller, are for the leds, and 2 for managing the speed of fans)
-the 2 fans on the radiator
-the inbuilt fan controller (the fans of the controller are connected on the other 2 wires of the 4 pin connector)
for connecting them I'm using a pump adaptor
http://www.aquatuning.us/product_info.php/info/p9531_Alphacool-pump-adaptor.html
but also here I have a lot of work to finish.
I'm glad having found your work.
Still a big issue is the panel, mine is not trasparent, and I think the fan on it is quite useful. So I can make a lot of modding but I won't be able to see it inside like you do.
Greetings from europe