Progress on my first water cooled build

Hi guys,

So this is my first build and this forum contains some good stuff so I decided to join! (ps: from belgium so I hope my English is fine enough )

I will be posting all my work on the forum aswell!
(Added links so you can quickly see the hardware)

END RESULT:


All pictures of the build and shopping list will be added bellow, starting from Update1

I have 3 questions (Sorry they got quite long):
1) Will my complete build fit + is it all compatible?
2) Is my water loop alright from a efficiency point fo view (is my intake and exhaust good, is the loop in the right order, were do I place the drain valve in my loop (RES2 right?) and will it look decent if I place it like this?
3) Are there any generel remarks or things I have to look out for (Should I buy shrouds? how many Stop Fittings will I need?)

I would be gratefull for answers to any of the questions

I will now post all the details from what I decided on (up to now)

First, my core build
Motherboard : ASUS Z170-A
GPU : MSI GeForce® GTX 1080 SEA HAWK EK X 8GB
CPU : INTEL Core i5 6600K 3.5-3.9GHZ 6MB 4 Core 4 Threads
Power Supply : Corsair RM750x
Memory : Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16GB DDR4-2666 Kit HX426C15FBK2/16
SSD M.2 slot : Samsung 950 Pro 256GB M.2
CASE : Phanteks Enthoo Pro M Acrylic Window Edition Antraciet

Now my water cooling stuff (OUTDATED, the correct stuff will be added with UPDATE2): [note: this would also work, it's good stuff but i preferred to get everything from ekwb, just because it would all fit that much more perfect and it looks grait, price was a bit lower aswell]
CPU Block : Koolance CPU-390I Water Block, Acrylic Top - Intel Processor
GPU Block : Included with my GPU
Reservoir 1 : Bitspower Water Tank Z-Multi 250
Reservoir 2 : Bitspower Water Tank Z-Multi 100 (just for looks)
2x Dual Radiators : EK-CoolStream PE 240 (Dual)
Pump : Swiftech MCP50X Extreme pressure Pump

PETG Tube : Bitspower None Chamfer PETG Link Tube OD12MM-Length 1000MM
Fitting : EK-HDC Fitting 12mm G1/4 - Nickel
Angled Adapter : EK-AF Angled 90° G1/4 Nickel and/or EK-CSQ Adapter 45° G1/4 Nickel
Water : Mayhems X1 Blood Red Coolant 1Ltr



I alreay have 2 x 140mm fans with the case and Already bought 4 x Corsair AF120 led 120mm fans for the radiators

That was the hardware, I'm also sleeving but I'll leave that out until the actual build, this is allot already

My loop

And here I tried to make a sketch on how I would make my loop in semi 3D (2 pics)


Note: My reservoirs have different sizes then the those in this picture


Is this achievable with no bending skills? Any other remarks on this?

Please be as hard on me as you can, I wanne do this right!

Thanks anyhow for all the assist!
Cheers



v
From here on I'll try to add shopping lists:
CASE : Phanteks Enthoo Pro M Acrylic Window Edition Antraciet


How cool is it that the actually hidden the accessory box inside a hdd bracket xD

GPU : MSI GeForce® GTX 1080 SEA HAWK EK X 8GB


Also I bought sleeves, coolant, fan rubber to silence them, led bars, leds, wire combs, etc..
For more details on numbers and such look bellow:

I also added stuff to actually do the water cooling bending and cutting, it's also on the list. Here's the contents of the box:



UPDATE 2: More hardware arrived
Shopping list:

Picture time!


The Corsair power supply comes with a bag for the power supply made out of some kind of fabric, the cables also get a more robust bag. The quallity of the packaging is amazing :O



I can start sleeving now!

SLEEVING: The beginning of the end?
So guys, I wanted to start sleeving.. It took me 30minutes to get my first pin out of my PCI-E cable. Just keep doing it, it goes allot faster after that. I use stables for it because the tool I got for it was to big....

JEEJ! I got it.. Happy for a moment, then I tried to remove the 1 square connector.. That thing doesn't move at all.. and then I ran into this:

Whaa daa faa... How am I going to sleeve this..
I started to take a look at my other cables and I seee this massive tumor on my ATX cable.. Is it a ferrite magnet or another capacitor or ...

I don't have a clue on how I should continue. Any tips on this?


So here's my first try on sleeving shrinkless.



This is how I masked the capacitors.. But I'm not sure that I will keep it this way. It looks fine but I think I will just leave them out for my final build.





UPDATE 3: Water cooling arrived!

Shopping list:


Here are some pics:


So the pump turned out to be a very big thing xD I hope I can make it all fit :s

I will start to build tomorrow, no more updates until I finish

So far I ordered from HighFlow.nl for the small stuff, the case is from MindFactory.de and the gpu from hardwarecamp24.de The watercooling stuff came from ekwb directly.

UPDATE 4: Almost done!!

So this was hard! I got everythign and try to assemble it. It didn't seem to fit whatever I tried.. The pump was just to big. My first sketch was trash.. I tried this but it also didn't work.


Sexy radiator is sexy


After a full 4 hours of fitting I went to sleep, figured I'd had to leave something out.. But overnight I thought of something, the next morning I made it like this:

It still had a few problems like the drain valve kept falling down deu to the 90° angle adapters, so I had to make soemthing to hold it:

I made it from 1 of the panels I got from the back of my case.. Didn't need it anyway
Ow this reminds me, don't try to unscrew the fittings with our hand, they are very sharp.. This build really costed me blood, sweat and mantears
You can undo the screws with the end of the back panel you remove for putting in your GPU. So I made an unscrewer from the leftovers of my drain valve pillar

So I continued and I made all the small straight connections. Also I added my cables so I knew were everything went. I got cable combs on my GPU cables, but the 24pin comb broke.. So I tried lacing that cable, turned out pretty well, but this aint the best picture, will add a second one . (Note: the 8pin GPU cable comb didn't fit at all!! I tried everything to make it fit. I end up using a part of the broken 24pin comb...)



Lacing:


Aight! Final part of the build. I tested my cables on my old PC just to be sure. Now only bending remains!
This took me several tries but I ordered enough tubes, still have some left


It's not all perfect, but hey, it's my first try

I also added all the lights. Can't test them atm, but I will make a jumper for my atx soon. I should be filling her up tomorrow , Wish me luck

Some pics of me desk while building



EDIT: I made a jumper to test the leds not connected to my motherboard
Result:



UPDATE 5: The end of building but software is a pain!
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

The bottom of this res was broken.. what a pain.. drained the loop, switched the bottoms of my 2 res and added a deeper going part into the broken res bottom, you can see it on the pictures, this solved my issue, no more leaks. Only problem is, I had to remake the biggest tube, the lenght wasn't good anymore..
But again filling:


This is a nice shot








I should take some more picture in the dark with the glass off, then you really see it all. Will add some later on!
Right now I have an issue.. The GPU isn't working as intended.. It shows me my screen in 800x600 resolution, which is normal without drivers.. But from the moment I instal my drivers.. My screen goes black, stating no signal detected.. My onboard graphics work fine, working on them now.

I tried several things.

• Reinstal GPU drivers
• use DDU tool to completely remove de display drivers, reboot, use ccleaner to clean registery, reboot and reinstal drivers
• reinstal windows 10 (I go back to having no drivers and the problem reoccurs)
• set the PCIe in tbios to GEN3
• Set GPU as main driver in bios
• dissable the onboard drivers (needed to reinstal windows because I couldn't get a screen anymore)
• removed a RAM so only 1 is present
• remove all cords from pc and hold power button for aprox 1min
• and several I might have forgotten

Also tried to disable the secure boot, but I can't edit it in bios, it is grayed out..
My next step will be installing windows 8.1 or 7 to see if it works
The problem is, I can't just pull out my GPU.. I'd have to drain my loop and gone's a weeks of work

Also, in my bios the gpu keeps working, it's not until windows should be loading that it stops working..
Cables and monitors are tested on my other rig.

Dammit xD I wanna play on my new pc xD

Hope anybody knows a solution


So the card was broken, got a new one, plug and play
(Only the plugging took some time xD)

I added some extra led tubes to make the reservoir pop some more.
View attachment 184097
View attachment 184098

Also a small video:
Yeah sorry I failed with the video xD
Cheers!

Seems like you're on the right track.

One suggestion I've got (others may disagree) would be to remove the second reservoir. There's no need (unless you're just wanting it bc it looks cool, which is ok ). It just adds another potential leak point, and trust me when I say that the fewer things you have to trouble shoot to find leaks, the better!

What fluid are you planning on using? Distilled + biocide + silver kill coil?

Solid looking build though, you've got my attention!

Oh, and Welcome to the Forums!

I am also super excited to see this finished! As I am in te same boat, getting ready to start my custom loop.

1 thing though, if you don't plan on doing any bends, it looks like you're going to have a lot of angle fittings, and like he said previously, the fewer leak points the better.

I'd maybe get a couple extra pipes and practice bending. Might be worth it in the long run.

- - - Updated - - -

Also make sure you double and triple check your fitting and tube sizes

mokrunka said:

Seems like you're on the right track.

One suggestion I've got (others may disagree) would be to remove the second reservoir. There's no need (unless you're just wanting it bc it looks cool, which is ok ). It just adds another potential leak point, and trust me when I say that the fewer things you have to trouble shoot to find leaks, the better!

What fluid are you planning on using? Distilled + biocide + silver kill coil?

Solid looking build though, you've got my attention!

Oh, and Welcome to the Forums!

Click to expand...

Hey,

I'm glad you like it. The reservoir is just for looks. Else that part of the case would look to empty
the water I'm using can be found here http://www.highflow.nl/koelvloeistof/kant-en-klaar/mayhems-x1-blood-red-coolant-1ltr.html
The description is in English.

I already order everything, made some changes to the type of pump and reservoirs. But I will update my main post as I go along.

Haturee said:

I am also super excited to see this finished! As I am in te same boat, getting ready to start my custom loop.

1 thing though, if you don't plan on doing any bends, it looks like you're going to have a lot of angle fittings, and like he said previously, the fewer leak points the better.

I'd maybe get a couple extra pipes and practice bending. Might be worth it in the long run.

- - - Updated - - -

Also make sure you double and triple check your fitting and tube sizes

Click to expand...

Hi,

Love your profile pic I'm planning to finish it this month. Got my first box yesterday, and I will get the rest next week.
I minimized the number of angle fittings (mostly I will be using them straight at the components to get a good starting angle)
I bought enough tubes for 2 builds I think, got myself a heat gun, bending tool, the silicon thing you put into the tubes, a cutter/reamer tool from bitspower, etc...

I will add the pic of the unboxing somewere today.

I'm gonna have to do allot of bending, I'm scared for the pump, I will place it in th bottom of the case, only way leading there is through the hole you see on the pic in the main post.
The pump is also transparent so I think it will look cool if you can see it through the raster. But that might change if it's to hard to fit.

I wish you good luck with your build aswell, it's one hell of a challenge

I remember getting my first big case, the nzxt phantom, and it also hid the components box in the hdd bay. Very nifty. I have taken a looking to phanteks cases, the one you got looks super clean.

I'm home in 2 days, so I'll also share pictures

So you won't be completing this build til the 16th? We have roughly the same schedule even lol

Yeah, there's not much I would change about the case, and the price is super cheap in my opinion
I look forward to your pics
I have to work so I don't think I'll have it finished by the 16th. I'm gonna do it in the weekend.
And I best take my time, I don't wanne rush this the build is 80% of the fun

Edit: Did you like the nzxt case? My brother had it and he said it was to much plastic, going to lans with it would only kill the case But I won a case at the lan so he got that case from me, more robust it was a Antec P100, also clean, but no window

Yeah, I enjoy the phantom. Ot was a lot of plastic, but still a solid build. Nothing compared to this phanteks though. I'm stoked to start building this one up. The fact that it's my first custom loop also makes it a bit more exciting. I got the enthoo primo and plan on doing just a couple light mods to it to make it look how I want it too.

I'm envious of your litte 3d models, I wish I could do that, I'll probaby try it when I get home and can actually use a computer.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm also doing 2 reservoirs, but I'm cutting te section out of the case where the small window is and mounting them where the hdd bays go. If all goes as planned lol

Ow, Now I really want pics on the progress, I'm minimizing edits to the case, it has nearly everything I need I think. Also I don't have the tools. I really want to know how you do it to make it look nice.

The 3D isn't actually a real 3D model, I took the picture from the site and used inkscape to add the tubes. Pretty easy if you try for a little while. You can always delete the line and try again , you can also place a 3D block in inkscape, this could be handy if you want a reference point for drawing the lines. (But it can be tricky, changing a 3D object in 2D space xD)

I just had some time to spare and needed a rough idea how to place the tubes

Inkscape

I won't have hands on with the parts until this weekend, but I'm pretry sure I'll just need a dremel and a drill.

I'm stoked to see yours as well, all that hard ware is going to look great!

And thanks for that! Defenitly going to give it a try!

Very nice! Sleeving sounds like a lot of work, I just plan on ordering custom cables.

The packaging on that psu is nice!

Haturee said:

Very nice! Sleeving sounds like a lot of work, I just plan on ordering custom cables.

Click to expand...

I'm scared xD
I should have ordered custom cables, but it was very expensive and I wanted several colors. The weird part is, presleeved cables don't have the extra components in them, and it works, so maybe I can leave them out..
Pretty sure that a capacitor + resistor only makes a filter that would reduce disturbances of lower frequncies in this case.. 2200µF.. So I think I can just leave them out. If you get our presleeved cables, be sure to send me a pic before mounting them
------------------------------------------------------


So I found this video from CableMod.
Summary:
-Cap reduces ripple
-Placing cap in the middle is best for looks but is a bit less good for ripple
-When using a single GPU, completely removing the cap wouldn't mather all that much
-Buying the cables is allot more easy then making them xD


Here even more information of these cables. Corsair


If you are planning to order pre sleeved cables, I already asked the question to the people of CableMod:

Our RMi/RMx cables to come with the capacitors - but tbh this feature is more a marketing feature of Corsair but doesn’t have a real effect - you can order our cables without any worry because as mentioned before our cables come with capacitors as well - just like the Corsair ones.

Click to expand...

I can do that. And yeah, I don't think I'd be too worried about all that extra stuff.

Wow! Looks like its going to be fun to put together!
Really looking forward to seeing the end result!
My NZXT 850 stopped working so I could only throw one together so far.
Still waiting for a couple parts on my main rig

Update 4 added

Hey Haturee, how is your build coming along? Get me some pics ^^

as long as the tall res is feeding the pump inlet your all good.
for a first water loop you're doing awesome!!!!!!

for my cable kit I cheated and ordered mine sleeved.
keep up the VERY NICE work.

I've been waiting for this update!
Looks amazing! I hope mine looks at least half as good
Can't wait to see her running!