I never said it was one the best TIMs available Blaylock, I said, "Artic Silver 5 is one of the best TIMs we have at our disposal".
And in my reference to Artic Silver 5 in the first place, I was referring it as a gap filler for roughly machined water blocks of which it is an excellent performer and the Artic Silver 5 we have available today is an improved formula over what was originally released.
Personally I am using Artic Silver 5 right now because it is an excellent performer, or I wouldn't be using it!
I have a box of TIMs that I have previously tested and used containing, Artic MX4, Gelid GC Extreme, Thermalright Chill Factor, Spire Blue frost, XSPC K2, Timtronics Grey Ice 4200, Cool Laboratory Liquid Pro, and Noctua NT-H1, and some others, but I make my own choice in using Artic Silver 5 over those others.
I never said it was one the best TIMs available Blaylock, I said, "Artic Silver 5 is one of the best TIMs we have at our disposal".
And in my reference to Artic Silver 5 in the first place, I was referring it as a gap filler for roughly machined water blocks of which it is an excellent performer and the Artic Silver 5 we have available today is an improved formula over what was originally released.
Personally I am using Artic Silver 5 right now because it is an excellent performer, or I wouldn't be using it!
I have a box of TIMs that I have previously tested and used containing, Artic MX4, Gelid GC Extreme, Thermalright Chill Factor, Spire Blue frost, XSPC K2, Timtronics Grey Ice 4200, Cool Laboratory Liquid Pro, and Noctua NT-H1, and some others, but I make my own choice in using Artic Silver 5 over those others.
Well, yeah... I know I have two or three TIMs in a box somewhere here.
And I am sure at least one of them is Arctic Silver brand, not sure which version of it.
I will try all I have and compare the results.
Thanks for the insights both of you.
Ok, we are almost there with all the parts arrived.
Yes, believe me, it takes up to 3-4 months to get certain things here, so we really need to plan.
I am just missing the CPU water block, which may arrive this week.
Eveything else showed up.
Need an idea here...
I miss something in my case that is an audio front panel.
I use my headphones a lot and I have been connecting it to my monitor, instead of the case.
But my Audio card has some amazing features for headphones that I am not taking advantage of, so I would love to have a HD Audio front panel installed.
I bought one but I felt very disappointed with the overall quality and when I realized the problems I will have to install it in this case I kinda gave up.
I would need to carve out a 3 1/2" bay underneath the fan controller. Its currently not there...
The panel I bought is very common, it has mic in, audio out and a couple USB 3.0 ports.
I don't really need the USB ports, so I always wanted is really a couple audio jacks that I could punch a couple round holes in the acrylic and accomodate somewhere not too conspicuous...
So far, I am failing on this mission, even if I take the audio jacks out of the panel I bought they would need to be soldered in a PCB.
Then back to square one on this one.
Yesterday and today I dedicated to fix the radiators into the planned position.
I also did some cable management for SATA and the fans:
I don't like the paracord in the fans sleeving but I decided to keep it.
The problem is that the audio port has to be soldered in to a PCB to work, and I would bet the Lian Li would need that too.
I am trying to find an audio jack that could be fixed just by the "neck", so I would put a hole in the acrilic and fix it there with no PCB, just like an audio extension cable or something.
But I need to preserve the "sensor" wiring, that feature that tells the audio board that something has been connected to the jack.
Not sure if what I am looking for exists though
Hey guys, one setback.
I have been patiently waiting for my Bykski CPU block to clear customs. It finally arrived.
I bought it on AliExpress...
Here are the pictures, you can judge for yourself:
So, that basically means that I got screwed.
Luckily enough, I will be in US next week and I might order a decent EK block with no 3 months waiting for custom procedures.
I thought I would be able to proceed on mounting the rig before my travel but if seems like I will need one month more to get everything I need.
It is Ok! I knew the risk I was taking, it is more on the time that I had to wait than the money but I have some lessons learned here: you get what you paid for.
At this point I can say: Barrow is ok but Bykski is not.
I don't know if it would leak. I am not willing to mount it!
The niquel plating is worn off exposing the metal underneath it.
Definetively there was some problem in the plating process, on the upper corners and around the o-ring.
In the parts that the plating is worn, it exposes a metal alloy. And it does not look like cooper, it is rather yellowish and not reddish as would expect from a cooper block.
The channels look large enough.
It is tricky to look at the pictures because the reflection creates an optical effect that may be erroneously interpreted.
Look again, to the last picure, the darker "stripes" are the channel "walls" and the reflecting lighter parts are the "valleys".
But the machinnery marks on top of the channel "walls" look groovy.
Yup, stick with the long reputed custom H20 companies. Lesson learned for sure and hope you didn't spend much on it. I wouldn't buy anything from Ali tbh. Lots of knockoff bad quality custom watercooling gear for cheap. I can see the temptation but the ending won't be so joyous.
Ok guys, there is no fun if there is no drama...
The yellow "stains" were just oil.
The seller brought to my attention that I should try to disassemble and clean it.
Well, it worked and I am now happy with what I got.
However, I get to travel tomorrow. It is going to be at least 20 days until I can do some real work in the rig.
Ok folks, I am back and I have been working on my rig.
So, a couple days ago I defined the res and pump placement.
Here is how it turned out.
So played with them a lot before punching the holes on the bottom of the case.
I experimented using the pump front inlet instead of the top one, but I would need to push the pump backward, then the outlet would have to have an additional bend when going up to the processor.
I even thought of having the res horizontal instead of vertical but nah, that would look sort of akward.
A couple things I learned: I don't quite like the options this res gives me. It has just only one hole on the bottom and it is excentric (not centralized).
I also don't like that the two holes on the base of the res are not aligned with each other, they have like 45º angle between each other.
The pump head also doesn't give you too many options for mounting. Two inlet options and one single outlet. Pretty limiting IMO.
But, lucky me, I think I got the best visual I could from this arragement.
So, after defining pump and res placement I started on cable sleeving.
Yes, I have been scared with this for a while.
I sleeved the pump cable for starters and coonected it directly to the power SATA out with the 6 pin connector.
Then I sleeved the single wire for pump signal to CPU cooler connector.
I think I did a decent job and I am satisfied with the end result. Having cables that measure exactly what they should pays off the effort.
So, I felt ready for something more complex and decided to build the SATA power cable.
After three hours here is the end result:
Yeah, it may not be the best cable ever, but it is complex enough for me to make before the 24 pin MOBO cable and won't be too conspicuous in case I screw something up.
The main goal here is really customize and reduce the amount of cable to hide, and make the cable pretty where it can't be hidden.
When you think that the original cable connects just 4 devices, when I have 5. That forced me to have two of them.
And the spacing between the connectors is much bigger than necessary, causing a lot of excessive cable to conceal between the storage units.
To relax after sleeving, I mounted the water blocks...
Here is the CPU's.
Forget about visuals and looks when you're pushing your luck of springing a leak with that reservoir configured like that. Add all the weight of the fluid, vibration, etc. and you better believe the pressure added to the fittings and hard tubing it's possible of springing a leak or even breaking the glass tubing to the left of it if the reservoir sags enough. I would reevaluate that configuration and make the necessary changes.
Just my 2 cents but its nice to see you're finally coming along.
Forget about visuals and looks when you're pushing your luck of springing a leak with that reservoir configured like that. Add all the weight of the fluid, vibration, etc. and you better believe the pressure added to the fittings and hard tubing it's possible of springing a leak or even breaking the glass tubing to the left of it if the reservoir sags enough. I would reevaluate that configuration and make the necessary changes.
Just my 2 cents but its nice to see you're finally coming along.
Well JB, thanks for the note. I am not relying on the fittings and tubes to sustain the res weight.
Does your comment mean you didn't see the res support back there?
Here is another angle...
Well, if you didn't notice them, it means I've done a good job on concealing them.
I am curious now.
Hey folks!
So, everything was more or less going as planned.*
I had to stop sleeving because I ran out of sleeves. But that's ok.
I could sleeve the cables that are on the back of the case, and will be easy to replace the ones on the front after all.
The looks (except for the*non-sleeved cables e.g. MOBO and PCI Express) is just what I was aiming for.*
I put it all together, bended the tubes, filled the loop in and started the leak test.
After half an hour everything looked stable and I booted up the rig.
Amazing 27ºC on IDLE and no more than 60ºC on preliminar stress test.
All of sudden the rig booted up by itself. Initially I thought it was because I pushed the stress test too far too soon.
No visible leaks, all fittings were dry and the paper showing no marks.*
It got worse and started rebooting and giving me some error codes.
I stopped everything and went for a leak hunt.
I never, never suspected that EK waterblock that comes already installed in Formula VII would leak.
I cannot describe how upsetting it was to see that.
It seems like the seal is not doing its job, would that be because I ran that for one year without WC, just air cooling?
I don't know.
But I spent hours looking into the stuff I added to the rig. I checked all fitings and blocks pipes*before I even think of looking into this block, again "of course" I wouldn't question quality of an EK+Asus partnership!
And everything happened concealed under the black plastic plate that covers the MOBO.
And the CPU socket was soaking wet!
Well, after a couple hours cleaning it up and using a hair dryer to dry it up, I could boot up the mobo again.
It seems it is alive.
Now, I cannot look at this pictures without cursing.
I am really thinking about giving up on this block and leaving the voltage regulators to do its work just air cooled.
What do you guys think?
You need to run a 24 hr leak test with everything powered off and disconnected, not 30 mins to see if there are any actual leaks. We echo that information all the time. Also, DON'T go powering your components after "drying" up a leak, especially if you were lucky enough to not fry anything prior. You're just really pushing your luck. You NEED to give them several days of drying, especially when your socket was turned into a pond.
I hope there's no permanent damage and everything runs fine in the long run.
Not trying to be rough on you during these tough situations but its obvious you've missed the key basic steps for beginners to watercooling. Becareful and use extra caution. Take your time, it's not a race.
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