New Build: Project Black Devil

New Build: Project Black Devil EDIT: Graphics cards added!!

I've finally pulled the trigger on what I'm dubbing as "Project Black Devil." Some of you have probably seen my posts lately asking for advice and a big thanks goes out to all who have helped along the way.

Here it is:

Case: Xigmatek Elysium - Black
Radiator 1: HWLabs Black Ice GTX420
Radiator 2: HWLabs Black Ice GTX240
Radiator 1 Fans: Yate Loon 140mm D14SH-124R from Performance PC's
Radiator 2 Fans: Yate Loon 120mm D12SH-124R from Performance PC's
Pump: MCP35x
Reservoir: EK MultiOption Res X2 250 Advanced Reservoir
Tubing: Tygon R-3400 1/2" ID 3/4" OD Black Tubing - 8 ft.
CPU Block: XSPC Raystorm
CPU Block LED: 3mm LED Harness w/ Red LED from Frozen CPU
Fittings: Bitspower Matte Black Ultimate G1/4 Rotary Compression Fittings (7), Koolance VL3N QDC Male G1/4 Thread (3), Koolance VL3N QDC Female Compression (3), Koolance VL3N QDC Male Compression (1)
Biocide: IandH Silver KillCoils
Fan Controller: Lamptron FC9 4-channel 50W per channel
Fan Cables: Phobya Y Cable Splitter- 3-pin to 6x3-pin, Phobya Y Cable Splitter- 3-pin to 4x3-pin (2)
Cable Sleeving: Mod/Smart Kobra Black Sleeve Kit
Thermal Compound: IC Diamond 7

System:

CPU: Intel i7-2600K
Motherboard: Asus Maximus IV Extreme Z
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB Dual Channel 1866Mhz CL9 - Red, Corsair Vengeance 8GB Dual Channel 1866Mhz CL9 - Black, 16 GB total
Power Supply: Seasonic X-1250
Boot Drive: Corsair Force GT 180GB (2) in Raid 0
Media Drives: Asus DVD Burner (2), Asus Blu Ray Reader
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaser X-Fi Fatality Champion Series

Already Own:

Graphics Cards: EVGA GTX 570 Superclocked (2) in SLI
Keyboard: Logitech G19
Mouse: Logitech G9x
Headphones: Logiteceh G930
Speakers: Logitech Z-2300
Monitors: Samsung 2333T (3) at 5760x1080

Build Plan:

This will be a single loop and to begin with CPU only. It will not be complete until Nvidia releases the GTX 600 series. When that happens, I'm going to buy 2 EVGA HydroCopper GTX 680's to plug into the loop.

For now, my plan looks something like this:



There will be a 240 mm radiator in the front where the drive bays go and a 420 mm radiator along the top. I plan to mount one of the Elysium hard drive bays behind the power supply.

Different from what the picture shows, the pump and res will be mounted separately. I plan to mount the pump on top of the drive bay and mount the res above that between the motherboard and the 5.25" bays in the front.

Both radiators will be in a push/pull fan setup with the high speed Yate Loon's. I plan to have the 6 fans on the 420 rad on one channel, the 4 fans on the 240 rad on another channel, and the case fans on a third channel. That leaves me one spare channel in case I ever add a third radiator somewhere.

The theme for this build will be all red/black. The case is all black, all fans will be red LED fans along with the red LED cpu block, and all cables will be braided black, and I do mean every cable in the case. I've already pulled the front panel off of the Elysium and as soon as my sleeve kit gets here I'm ready to get to work.

I ordered all of the cooling system and the rest of the system that I don't own already today, so I should have the majoirty of my parts by the end of the week.

I hope this build turns out amazing when I'm finished. It's my first watercooled build so I don't really know what to expect. Stay tuned and I'll post plenty of pictures as the build comes along, and probably ask some questions too lol.

reserve

reserve1

will that case fit a quad rad in the top? my guess is that it prolly only fits a tripple rad. if it does then damn taht must be a long case

rustyfender said:

will that case fit a quad rad in the top? my guess is that it prolly only fits a tripple rad. if it does then damn taht must be a long case

Click to expand...

140mm fan x 3 = 420

right i just re-read your first post i misunderstood at first i thought you were trying to stick a quad 120mm rad in there i was like whaaaaa? my bad rofl. best of luck with your build sounds like you have a pretty solid plan there so should work well. the only suggestion i might make is to try and get the res/pump higher in the loop. just makes it alot easier to fill and get the bubbles out.

I have most of the things mounted in the case. Still waiting on fittings and a couple extra parts. It's coming along fairly nicely and I'll have some pictures up by the end of the week!

rustyfender said:

will that case fit a quad rad in the top? my guess is that it prolly only fits a tripple rad. if it does then damn taht must be a long case

Click to expand...

It will not fit a quad, but it is made to fit a 3 x 140mm radiator which is a 420mm radiator. A 3x140mm rad is actually larger in surface area than a quad 120 rad. I had some issues because for some odd reason HWLabs made it so there is about a screws width of spacing between each fan. The case has holes drilled for fans that are bumped up against eachother, so I had to do some slight modding to make the holes fit, but you really can't tell unless you look at it real close.

I'll post a detailed log of what all I had to do for the build in the reserved spots above.

Here are some teaser photos of what I've got so far. I'm still waiting on my res, fittings, fan controller, blu ray drive, more cable sleeving, more shrink tubing, a 240GB Vertex 3, and an 8GB Red Vengeance memory kit to go with the Black one I have in the motherboard at this time.

I was really impressed with how the Maximus IV board looked. Really just a stunning looking board and perfect for my red/black theme.

I've painted the drives to match everything else. I used a semi gloss black and should have probably used flat black, but the difference in colors isn't near as extreme in normal light as it is shown here under flash. You can't tell that much of a difference, and it looks infinitely better than the gray they came as.

I was especially pleased with the mounting of the hard drive cage in the bottom. I was able to use pre drilled/threaded holes in the cage that lined up with the honeycomb holes in the bottom of the case and just used thumb screws that came with the case.

Here it is so far:

Finally got all the fittings and correct angled adapters to make this setup work. It was a little tight but everything fits pretty well. Here's a video of it leak testing:

Leak Test Video

reservoir needs more water to help reduce those turbulence. I also find pulsing the pump off for a few seconds when its good and aerated helps speed up bleeding.

Turbulence also won't be near as bad when the pump isn't running at a full 4500 rpm. Once I plug it into the motherboard it will be throttled. Will also add more water.

thebski said:

Turbulence also won't be near as bad when the pump isn't running at a full 4500 rpm. Once I plug it into the motherboard it will be throttled. Will also add more water.

Click to expand...

I think what he was saying was more along the lines of the following, which I often offer as advice: Wait until you see the bubbles circulating your loop enter the res, then kill the pump, and let them float out rather than letting them get sucked back into the pump.

^this.

Had a dead PCI slot on the motherboard once I got it going. Just shipped it off this morning to Newegg for replacement.

Will have pics and vids soon!

One more question....it doesn't seem that I'll ever get the bubbles out because when the water from the upper tube falls back into the water pool it creates bubbles. Should I fill the water above the taller tube so the water always stays submerged?

I have filled the water up to just below the top of the inlet tube (taller tube).

ssjwizard said:

reservoir needs more water to help reduce those turbulence.

Click to expand...

The water MUST be ABOVE your return line or you will just keep mixing air into the reservoir. Thats exactly how power jets work on aquariums by mixing the water around to dissolve air into it.


Anyways fill your reservoir to the top and bleed the thing.

Yea I mean that makes sense. I'm really not that stupid I promise .

One more question: what do you guys use for sensing your water temperature. Once you've got the sensor, what do you monitor it with? Software of some kind?

I was just thinking about this because I'd really have no way to know if my pump died unless I was looking into the machine or watching Hardware Monitor and the rpm. Having a water temp warning would be nice.

Use the RPM wire from your 35x and set an alert in the bios on cpu fan fail. temp sensors and such are just more junk that can fail and over complicate your loop. I promise that unless you are using rediculously loud fans that you will know if your pump has stopped.

LOL, love the cat's tail in the one pic. I have two cats and computer tinkering is a cat magnet. Thanks for introducing me to this case, I was not aware of it being out there, looks like a contender I might use for my next build and delve into watercooling for the first time. Good job painting the optical drives black... I don't know how many systems I've seen that peeps have gone to great lengths to disassemble cases, etc. to paint mobo trays and whatnot black and in the pic u see white/grey optical drive sticking out like a sore thumb.

Well it's been a while since I built this machine, but I finally purchased some graphics cards for this thing and I think I'm ready to put them under water. I ended up going with 3 GTX 670 FTW's from EVGA. I'm pretty happy with them so far and I can't wait to get them under water.

You can read my little review of the 3 cards here.

On to the water cooling ... my loop is still as it was in the original post, but I need to update it with some finished photos. I'm going to be doing that after this post. That said, I'm taking input on how to make this set up work:



I plan on using three EK GTX 680 Acetal+Nickel blocks with a 3 way EK SLI Bridge. I've linked them both below.

Blocks

Bridge

Here are my questions:

1. Are the nickel blocks from EK ok to use? I know they use to cause major problems, but I thought I had read that EK changed them and now they're not longer a problem. Are they ok to use?

2. What would the best way to make the connection coming out of the graphics cards into the QDC on the inlet of the CPU block? I want to be able to disconnect both my graphics cards independently as well as the entire mobo section if I need to like it's setup right now.

3. Would I benefit from running a second MCP35x with an x2 top with the three way serial connection? I am tempted to just for redundancy purposes, especially with my first pump having a tendency not to start like it did. It just has me a little nervous cooling that much hardware.

That's all I have for now. Any help is again very much appreciated!