[eightballrj]

Well, that the name of the game. I wanted the cleanest, most elegant case/watercooling/power supply setup that I could get and afford. So, I chose the Lian Li V-2100B. This is the cleanest looking, most elegant case that I could find and still be in my price range and hold all my stuff. Here is my rig's new specs:

Case: Lian-Li V-2100B
Power supply: Thermaltake Toughpower 1200 Modular
Radiators: PA120.2(top), PA120.3(bottom)
Pumps: dual DDC2's with Petra's tops
CPU block: Swiftech Apogee GTX
NB Cooler: HR-05 SLI
SB Cooler: Enzotech low profile Copper(have a HR-05 but it wouldn't fit with my water cooled 1900xtx)
Ram cooler: OCZ XTC Cooler

All hardware is same as in sig.

I borrowed a few ideas from another 2100B build on here that I REALLY REALLY liked!

Anyways here are the pics:









Tell me what you think! Thanks!!

[Gautam]

Looks awesome. Weekend well spent it seems.

[lenix]

That case is great, Looking Gold mate... cheers and good job

[JamesXP]

-steals-



Well done great job

[eightballrj]

Heh, thanks guys!

Yeah Gautam.... OMG it took FOREVER!! I don't think I showered this weekend and I think I only brushed my teeth once.... ROFL!!! GROSS!!!

[JamesXP]

temps?

[Sam__]

loooooking gd m8

[eightballrj]

Originally Posted by JamesXP

temps?

You know... thats the weird thing. I am so over radiator and fan'd its not even funny. I have the best waterblock for that proc(bowed) and have a good mount. I am getting 55C under TAT load at 3.6ghz and 1.525 volts. I idle at 37C at the same specs. I mean at stock speed it was idling at 78 degrees Fahrenheit in the bios. Thats like 3 or 4 degrees above ambient in Fahrenheit. Thats good! But, for some reason I am not getting as good of results under OC?

[Tserrof]

looking great man. Enjoy the rig.

[treatmentx]

Well regardless of the numbers, it's clean, effort well put. Makes me wanna redo my case........ >=)

[eightballrj]

Yeh, but it really shouldn't be that high and I can't figure out why its that way. I guess I need to try some water wetter in small doses and see if that helps any. Right now I am straight distilled. I need to completely fill my fillport and flip the case upside down and see if I have any trapped air in the upper rad.

[EmAn]

wow that looks nice

[nd4spdbh2]

dude... thats a clean setup... i usually see all the rads and tubes of a wc setup as a lil messy but that its super clean... nice job A+ work man.

2 things i would do however... cut out the lower part of the case (the black aluminum between the rad and outside grill. and if possible get the top grill in black anodized (a lil pepeve of mine... i like stuff in the same color thats just me)

but either way thats a super sweet sick nasty clean setup u got there.

[eightballrj]

Originally Posted by nd4spdbh2

dude... thats a clean setup... i usually see all the rads and tubes of a wc setup as a lil messy but that its super clean... nice job A+ work man.

2 things i would do however... cut out the lower part of the case (the black aluminum between the rad and outside grill. and if possible get the top grill in black anodized (a lil pepeve of mine... i like stuff in the same color thats just me)

but either way thats a super sweet sick nasty clean setup u got there.

I don't know what you mean to cut out the black aluminum. There is no Al between the rad and the radgrill on the top or the bottom.

About the grills... I gotta have just that little bit of bling to dress it up just a tad and keep the nice elegant look

[voigts]

Very clean, sharp setup. You have done what appears to be a good job with cable management. Many of those Lian-Li setups I see end up looking like cable spaghetti.

[eightballrj]

Originally Posted by voigts

Very clean, sharp setup. You have done what appears to be a good job with cable management. Many of those Lian-Li setups I see end up looking like cable spaghetti.

Thanks man! The cable management is fine, I worked really hard on it. But, I need two longer AC Ryan SATA cables for the opticals. the 18 inchers are too short and I can't route them to where they are invisible just yet. Hopefully next paycheck I can get some more ordered.


BTW... I am posting some more pics of some close ups, etc.

[eightballrj]

OMG... I had to drain and refill the CPU loop because I found a bit of a kink in the CPU loop and it was bothering me. It didn't even hurt temps... I held it open for 30 seconds and no temperature drop. So, I drained, shortened the tubing from my CPU pump to the PA120.2, refitted, filled, and bled the system in an hour and a half and now my temps are down to a much more manageable 53 degrees from 57. I thought it was 55 but it wasn't. Anyways, here are some more pics showing attention to detail and just random closeups:

Shows mitered edges on grommeting and black rivets(6 in total).




HR-05 SLI where a regular HR-05 normally goes. Maybe when I get some new mounting clips I will try it. I wanted the sli on the chipset and regular on the southbridge but it was just too much in the way.



Dusty X1900XTX with clipped Swiftech vram sinks for previous orientation of waterblock.







I have a few more pics uploaded if anyone wants to see them in my album on photobucket:

http://s34.photobucket.com/albums/d1...an%20Overkill/

[the_cultie]

Lovely setup you have there, makes me want to take the plunge to water all the more

Originally Posted by eightballrj

NB Cooler: HR-05 SLI
SB Cooler: Enzotech low profile Copper(have a HR-05 but it wouldn't fit with my water cooled 1900xtx)

Just a suggestion, you could put the HR-05 on the Northbridge and the HR-05 SLI on the Southbridge.

[Deanzo]

A very nice, clean setup, something to be proud of.

Well done

[Moto7451]

Your temps may be caused by a bad mount. Try remounting.

[eightballrj]

I have remounted 3 times. The last time my temps went down and my load temps are better. Apparently my temps are about right with a week 28B proc.

[Gautam]

Yes they def are. 1.55 is about the sensible limit for WCing...I highly doubt very many run higher than that, and less still out of those manage to stay sub 60.

nikhsub isn't allowed to speak

[eightballrj]

Well, Gautam I don't see how his temps are that much better than mine. I don't see his setup being any better than what I have? He did say that it was a really cold day when he got those sub 50C temps.

[g0dM@n]

lol nice design on those swiftech copper ramsinks.

lots of hard work there pal!

[eightballrj]

Originally Posted by g0dM@n

lol nice design on those swiftech copper ramsinks.

lots of hard work there pal!

Haha, hey you gotta make it work somehow. I didn't want to cut them down all together.


BTW, I forgot to post a pic of the whole side open. I posted a top shot and a bottom shot but nothing to tie them together. So, hear it is:

[g0dM@n]

wow, dude... what a MONSTER you built... I'm truly impressed, man... very neat and very well though.

I didn't notice you did a double rad. Talk about being prepared!!!

[PearlJammzz]

Can we get some build pics? I am interested in doing a bottom mount similar to how yours is, would love to see how you cut everything out/mounted it .

[eightballrj]

Haha, I was so into the build I didn't even take any pics. All I can say is use two layers of blue painters' tape over the whole case until you are done if you are modding. Measure THRICE cut once! USE PILOT HOLES before larger bits... larger bits like to walk around on metal a lot!

I used a combination of a Dremel XRP (that I burnt up), a Dremel MultiPro, and a Jigsaw to cut all the non-circular holes. For the circular holes I used Lenox arbored hole saws(non-arbored are fine if you have a spare arbor from another purchase).

I used a 4.5" angle grinder to cut all the screws to length with a cutting wheel and a grinding wheel to smooth the end of the screws/bolts.

I used all flat-headed countersunk screws for the radgrills. I used two bosch high speed countersinking bits to counter sink the holes.

I bought a nice 29 piece set of hitachi drill bits(I normally use Dewalt but they were 25 bucks more expensive!) to drill all of the holes.

I used a 29 piece tap and die set to chase the buggered threads on the cut off screws and to tap out the holes on the bottom radiator's mounting holes so that they would accompany machine screws of the type that I had.

Since I had the painters' tape on the top and bottom of the case, I laid down the radgrill for the top and bottom radiators and measured to the sides of the case to make sure it was centered and borrowed a pair of hands to hold it while I traced the inner rim of the fan holes for the rad. I used the jigsaw to cut these holes roughly at first. Then, I went back and cleaned them up after mocking up the grill in the hole and seeing where it needed to be "edited".

Then, I measured for the holes for the fill ports and drilled them out with a 1inch hole saw.

Then I unscrewed all of the panels and accessories from the bottom of the case and mocked up how the radiator and HDD racks had to sit in there to be kosher with each other. I realized that I had to removed the front-most fan mount from the bay also. So, I removed it and remeasured. Then, with the mocked up rack in position, I used a "modified" sharpie (I narrowed the tip with a knife to fit in the screw holes) to mark the hole locations for the screws in the HDD rack and drilled out the holes.

Next, I marked where the 24 pin ATX connector needed to come through the middle divider. I used a carpenter's square to make sure that the TWO marks were lined up for the drill holes. I used a 1/2 inch drill bit for both holes and used a Dremel to connect the two holes so that I had a hole with nice, rounded edges. I did the same for the 8(4+4) pin power connector. However, I made a narrower hole with the same drill bit so that it would fit the smaller plug better.

Then, with the square, I drew on the middle divider the hole for the ventilation grill between the upper and lower chambers for flow from the bottom rad to the top chamber and cut it out with a jig saw and Dremel.

Next, I rough cut the grill with the jigsaw to cover the hole with room to spare on each side (roughly 3/4 of an inch). Then, I used the angle grinder to the the grill completely square by grinding until I was straight across each row of holes for all sides. Next, I painted the grill black and cleared it with Duplicolor automotive lacquer.

Then I measured off of the grill and cut the holes for the grommeted holes for the tubing to pass through. This was a 7/8 inch hole saw. Then, I mounted the grommets.

Next I decided where the holes needed to be in the motherboard tray so that I could pass the SATA cables and the USB header cable from the front of the case through the mobo tray and used the same "drill two holes and connect them" method.

Next came the FUN part... grommeting all of the holes so that they was no wire chaffing and for looks. I had to cut some of the grommeting to make the turns in the small holes behind the mobo. I didn't care about looks there so it wasn't pretty. But, it serves its purpose. Then, I grommeted the larger holes which were 50 times harder because it had to look good! The rectangular hole was easy except for getting the "mitered" corners to look good. Then I grommeted the grill.


Next came the sleeving. I sleeved everything but the SATA connectors. I thought that the 90 degree AC Ryan connectors looked great as is. So all I did for them was take off the stupid stickers that said SATA.... DUH! The two rear fans' (one on the side of the case on the "plus II" option mount and the rear fan) leads were cut, sleeved, soldered and heat-shrunk together. They run from the connection of the two fans at the edge of the rear fan to the fan controller over 16 gauge wire. This is of course sleeved with black 3 pin connectors. I also sleeved the power switch, power led, and hdd led wiring and ran it up to the motherboard through a hole in the tray that was already there. I took all of the wires apart and used a drill to twist them into a helix for easier sleeving and heat shrinking. I also sleeved all of the fans together on each radiator to one 16 gauge wire per radiator(one radiator worth of fans per channel on the fan controller). So, I have 7 Sanyo Denki San Aces, 3 on first channel(bottom rad), two on second channel(top rad), and two on third channel(case fans). It is a slightly positive pressure setup because of the lower speed/flow fan in the power supply.

Then I realized that I had too many Sata cables to run them through the factory cutout from the mobo and had to enlarge that and grommet it.

Then all that was left to do was to enlarge the holes in the outer skin of the case that I had already drilled to accommodate the larger machine screws and mount everything.




SORRY for the long write up. But, I figured that since I didn't have pics that I needed to be thorough.

[nikhsub1]

Very nice job there! There is one thing in particular that will keep me from sleeping at night though.... PLEASE change the direction of the fans on the top rad... you are drawing warmed case air through the rad - what you are essentially doing is HEATING the water with that rad... I have seen people report seeing 5C better when changing fan direction (you won't with the 2 rads but I bet it helps). Have that sucker draw fresh air in - it will keep the mobo and vid card cooler too.

Also - please use some sort of corrosion inhibitor! The GTX top is aluminum - yeah yeah I know it is military grade zinc cobalt and nickle plated but still, do yourself a favor. Pentosin G11 (the blue stuff) is what I have been using and I like it very much. Last thing, don't think that ANY additives will bring temps down, THEY WON'T

Again, you did a great job, don't see too many clean builds like that anymore.

[eightballrj]

Thanks nik! The only thing about changing the direction of the fans is that I won't have adequate exhaust. 5 intake fans and 3 exhaust if I change the other intake to exhaust. That seems like way too much positive pressure even with all of the holes in the case. I have run it completely open and the temps drop MAYBE 1degree C. If I can find some clear corrosion inhibitor I will run that. But, I don't want any color in the loop at all.