Building an external rig

Well my gear is currently being shipped, after many months reading here I finally made the plunge and ordered up my stuff.

I know I probably did not "need" to go for such an expensive setup, but I had the money and this was my first time so I went for more established built for water cooling parts, vice the cheaper and potentially just as good heater core ect ect ect.

So far I have built an acrylic box to start an external system and have ordered the following:

Danger Den - TDX for Athlon64 and Opteron - Includes Mounting Hardware, Lucite Top, 1/2 Fittings, Extra Oring, Five Nozzles & Wrench

12 feet of TUBEBLUE; Danger Den UV Blue Tubing for 1/2 Inch Fittings

Danger Den Single Bay Reservoir with High Flow Fittings and 5mm LED holes, 1/2

2 Y; Barbed Polypropylene Ys, 1/2 Fittings

10 Adjustable Plastic Hose Clamp, 11/16 - 13/16 Diameter Clamps

BIX; Black Ice Xtreme Radiator, Black, 1/2 Fittings

Papst 120mm Fan - With 4 Pin Molex

Swiftech MCP-600 12Volt DC Pump Version 2.0

Got everything but the pump from Danger Den and ordered the pump from crazy PC.

Now my background on this system is that I am putting a Athlon 64 system together from the ground up, once the new 939 pin CPUs and Motherboards are out I will be buying those to go into this system. I am building the external rig now to hopefully gain some experience prior to actually installing my gear.

The plan is for the acrylic box to sit on my CM Wavemaster case but I have a few questions. To be able to run the components now prior to installation, would you all recommend a power supply tester or the paper clip method?

Also I am giving consideration to mounting the res in the case, while maintaining the other components in the external rig, (possible size limitation of the acrylic box I built) is their any issue with the res being lower than the pump, radiator ect ect?

And last but not least, initially I am only going to water cool the CPU, wanted to get my feet wet (no pun intended) with a simple setup to start, then expand to the GPU and chipset down the line.
What would be the optimal tubing path for a single waterblock system?

Thanks for the attention and all the good reading and if anyone has any helpful hints, please advise

Also I am giving consideration to mounting the res in the case, while maintaining the other components in the external rig

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That defeats the point of going external. I went external because its a much cleaner looking setup, as well as keeping all of my components away from the heat of the case. To put the rad in there defeats the purpose of having external at all.

What would be the optimal tubing path for a single waterblock system?

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Res---pump----core----block----res: Thats my loop and it works very nicely. Your basically ok so long as you put the water to the blocks when its the coolest, IE coming from the core.

o be able to run the components now prior to installation, would you all recommend a power supply tester or the paper clip method?

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I did my own version of the paper clip method. I took the grey and green wire and spliced them together, wrapped em in electric tape and no problems.

That defeats the point of going external. I went external because its a much cleaner looking setup, as well as keeping all of my components away from the heat of the case. To put the rad in there defeats the purpose of having external at all.

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I was thinking of mounting the resevoir in the case, rationale being I might have some kinking issues with the box I have made. I will get a much greater feel for this when I get home today and the parts are here.

Thanks for the input!!

I don't think there would be much of a purpose to putting the res in the case. Probably the best thing you could do with it is to fix the pump inlet into the res (would require some cutting/sealing). That way it would help to eliminate pump flow resriction, and it would make it super easy to fill.
I'm going external (soon i hope) and i'm going to be building a custom res with two pump inlets built into it that's the plan at least. When you fill up the res and turn on the pumps the water's just going to shoot through the system, and it should bleed quickly as well

i use the res from DD, the cylinder style, and it takes about 7 1/2 minutes on the high end to fully bleed the system. Timed it hehe.