Maquina de los Muertos Day of the Dead themed Bitfenix Phenom M Build

philipgilliam said:

I'll have to leave it upside down. The heatsink has a light underneath the MSI logo so it'll keep it out. Also I added an RGB light to the shroud couldn't see it in the first pic though.

Click to expand...

Ahh ok. Always a fan of lighting..... but I kinda liked seeing all the sleeving colors showing through lol. Looking great, what's your CPU cooling and GPU plans?

That was a test run of the lights before the cables were installed. With the cables in you can still see through with the LEDs. I have an h80i for the time being but I'm looking into into a custom loop for the CPU only and air cooling the gpu. I'm trying to find a good deal on an EVGA 970. But looking into maybe a new 1070.

Grabbed a few shots once I got home. I've ran all the wires and checked to make sure everything fired up. I'm waiting on a cpu replacement to show up now and trying to find a nice graphics card to drop in.

Some exciting news. I'm gonna be doing a custom water cooled loop for the CPU. I've figured out everything I need a done a quick mock up with flexible straws to lay it out. Working with physical models goes a long way in visualizing and planning.

Hahaha I love it. Great idea.

Great innovation using those straws, I'm a physical space visualizer as well. *two thumbs up*

I wanna start things off by giving a big thank you to the folks over at http://www.aquatuning.us/ they had a little faith in the project and decided to help with a sponsorship. I've tried to put in a little work and I'm gonna add in a few notes tips to help other first time watercoolers jump in. I know they have some great tips over on the stickys in the watercooling forum. I have a nice big photo dump coming. If anybody wants to let me know what they think I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm trying to constantly evolve this build and any feedback would be a welcome addition.



All of the gear alphacool makes is extremely pleasing to the eye. The acrylic reservoir looks very clean and clear and the block is nice and understated. Honestly the pump is the piece that I liked most. The gunmetal finish is beautiful but will not be visible in the build which is a shame. I went with a radiator that had low fans per inch. I'm struggling for air flow due to my design decisions and any extra will help out a lot. I didn't get a picture of the fittings loose but they have a really nice gloss finish which will work well with the flat blacks I've been using. Tomorrow I'll post some progress updates and a finish look at the loop.

Very nice res/pump combo. I'm also glad that the cross flow radiators are becoming more popular. In many situations they provide a cleaner look to the build.

Looking awesome so far! And congratulations on that sponsorship!

Yeah I have to agree with you blaylock. It was also my only option due to interferences which there turned out to be a ton of. After u had planned it all out a dozen times when everything showed up I had to completely alter the layout.

After I test fit the reservoir in the case about 10 different ways I finally came up with this placement. I think it gives the tubes a nice shape. Once I got all the tubes measured and bent I went ahead with a dry fit. everything was looking good so it was time to prep my tubes for a nice coat of that shimmery purple paint. Decided I didn't like the bottom of the case being open so I made a bottom cover piece with a raised false bottom. The plan was to use this space to bring in the theme and hide some of the molex cables for the leds. So i decided to lay down a nice vinyl design on the plate but I couldn't quite get the cables hid enough so i had to cut a hole in the bottom corner towards the motherboard to route them out the back. Once I got that cleaned up everything started coming together and it was time for a leak test.

I just want to let everybody know that I'm a budget minded person and that I refuse to spend 10 bucks on a filling bottle, so this may be a nice little hack for people to use. All you need is a water bottle, hot glue and a dimes worth of vinyl tubing from your local hardware store. Simply poke a hole in the lid insert your tube and put a bead of hot glue around the top. Jumped the power supply off and gotta say that this reservoir with the leds is pretty epic. Theres a bubble plate at the bottom and the water spouts out of the top of the tube to give a very elegant splash effect. Think my sugar skull on the plate turned out well too.

I tried to break up the posts even though I'm letting them all go at once just to give the thread a semblance of flow but I saved my favorite shot for last. I really like the composition of this shot. I'd really appreciate some feedback good or bad, that's how we learn. I'll be back sometime in the future to give a quick rundown on my thoughts about water cooling for the first time. Thanks a bunch for looking peeps your time is important and I'm grateful your spending a little of yours on here. Trying to make it worth your while.

That looks incredible Philip. If I'm reading this right and this is you first time water cooling and attempting hard tubing on top of that, that's a pretty amazing feat in of its self. You absolutely nailed it. I can't recall ever seeing painted hard tubing before and it looks great. There really is a lot going on in this tiny case and you did an excellent job of keeping it from looking congested.

I do have a few questions for you. What material did you use for the sub floor and how did you attach it to the actual case floor? The sugar skull looks great with the LEDs behind it.


Well done sir!

I agree with Blaylock, you absolutely nailed that hard tubing! And with the spray paint, that's a first for me as well, but the purple really brings it all together. And don't get me started on that sugar skull, that thing is epic! Very well done man, you've had my close attention back when you started sleeving

Thanks guys the bottom plate is 4 pieces of acrylic. A flat top with 3 sides. I used plastiweld to bond the the 3 sides to the flat plate. You can pick up plastiweld from a local hobby shop once it's set it's really set it's basically one piece now. And it's fastened with dual pin Velcro attached to the case and the three sides where it meets. Also don't fear the hard tubing it was surprisingly workable. I don't know if it's easier than soft tubing because of my lack of experience but I can say it was not too difficult.

Been a while since I've updated I finally managed to get my hands on a decent GPU for a decent price. Picked up one of the earlier MSI 970s. I actually forgot to take a before picture so I've inserted a random stock image.

While it looks okay I really wanted to keep the clean lines of the pc going, so I decided to make a little shroud from acrylic to cover the pcb on the top and the heatsinks that would be seen from the side. As well as giving it a coat of paint to match the build theme.




I'm liking the way it looks so far had to dear down the rig to make an extra cutout in my psu shroud but it turns out it makes a nice little brace to prevent any sage, and i have about zero mm of clearance to the res as well.





I keep feeling like I'm getting closer to where I wanna be with the build but keep tacking stuff on. I thought i was happy with some plain corsair radiator fans but I've started to consider switching them out for some rgb replacements. and I'm not happy with the back of the case it seems too empty for my liking. Hopefully should be the next thing i tackle. trying to hash out some ideas for that back side now. Thanks for reading.