[jameseboy]

Last year I completed my 2011 Mod of the coolermaster cm690. And as much as I loved that case, It just wasn't able to hold up with sli'd gtx460s and a 2500K, so the case was replaced with a corsair 600T.

Back to the CM690 though, I decided that seen as I had some components kicking around, to build it up as a file storage pc/Folding rig/general web pc.

The current Hardware Specs are as follows:-

Amd Athlon x2 3800+ 2GHz (old, but does the trick)
8GB of DDR2 800mhz ram
An Asus m2n-e motherboard (am2+ so i have options on upgrading cpu if i find something)
Nvidia 7300gs (hopefully going to upgrade this to something that I can produce some folding points on soon)
Stack of hard drives ranging from 200GB ide to 2.5" laptop sata drives.
550Watt Coolermaster PSU

Previous Worklog on this case found here.

When I last did anything to this case, I was just learning about how to use the tools ect, so some of it was a bit of a mess, for example the top grill.



I was also advised at the time to remove the front grill, however never got around to it.



So time for a cleanup on what was done before.



I also decided to repaint sections of the case, such as the mesh and silver accents.


once reconstructed, this left me with my case back in one piece to start looking into the hardware.




Old air cooling.


Taking that older cooler off took a fair amount of effort, the screws were awkward to get into then, and now I don't have the long screwdriver i had back then (no idea where its vanished to)



WaterCooling Time

So these arrived in the post this morning


Its not much, but it'll do for the purpose I'm intending it for.

Radiator 1 Mounted:-


system installed:-


Leak testing prep:-


Filling her up:-


My plan is to test for at least 12 hours, however so far, after 4 hours, no leaks have sprung

More to Follow

[jazon1]

looking good=)

[jameseboy]

Thank you, I have another radiator on the way now and Some different liquid. I really.... dislike uv green. Im also looking into a vga block to add to the loop, get my folding up a few ppd.

[jazon1]

yea i have a few bottles of uv green sitting around as well from my old water cooling kit think its thermaltake junk it was horrible and had bad scaling and algae problems totally ruined my cooling system.if your going to ad a gpu block to it i would defiantly get yourself a reservoir as that small loop isnt holding alot of juice for cooling=)

[jameseboy]

Yeah, I think some primochill might be in order for my loop if Im putting more rads and stuff into it.

[jazon1]

im waiting on a new sabertooth x79 and a intel 3820 later this week and im thinking of going back to water cooling myself.i was an early adopter of it and had a hell of a time with it nothing but nightmares,but now that it seems to have matured alot i might ad it to my new system=) i still have a few universal water blocks for gpu and cpu my only concern for the gpu blocks is they dont cover the memory just the chip.i guess if im going to do it again i should just start with a whole new system.about how much have you spent so far on the water system you have set up so far?

[jameseboy]

i got the waterblock/120 rad/ pump/coolant/hose/fittings ect all for £60 (On a promotion from a store here in the uk, should have cost me around £130($210) the extra rad i bought, i got slightly used of ebay, and its cost me £15 so around $25 so that makes my total so far about $230-$240

[jazon1]

thats not to bad i think thats what about what i payed years ago for the old system.

[jameseboy]

So tonight I have partially rebuilt the system. its up and running and I have windows installed (mainly or testing purposes)

The water cooling is nice and quiet, however the 7300gs is rather.... noisy with its ~30mm fan..... got a mild overclock on my chip (2.0 stock, now at 2.35) loading @ 33/34C idling at 21C

Currently doing some stability testing, Going to look at putting some FAH on tonight to see what kind of ppd I can expect (not a lot i guess)

[jameseboy]

Got the chip now running at 2.5ghz stable. Couldn't stabilize one of the cores at higher frequencies. The water cooling is currently keeping the chip at 39C under 100% load.

However, the 2-300 ppds its pulling whilst folding is pretty worthless. My ps3 pulls better ppd. so im probably not going to be folding on this system.

I might also Remove windows and put linux on this machine and have it purely as a linux box. Due to the fact that linux works fine for most activities, and I also from time to time need linux installed for university work.

Ubuntu is also stable enough to use as a home media server to stream to all the consoles in the house, which will allow me to store everything on a central database when I get a few more Hard Drives installed in the system.

[jameseboy]

I have stripped the watercooling out of this system as I feel it was not needed seen as I am no longer going to be folding on this system. My h100 may be replacing it, or the zalman air cooler being reinstalled.

[jazon1]

yea there dont really seem to be much need for liquid cooling unless your doing a pretty heavy overclock or running a new ivy cpu i prefer a good air cooling solution less hassle to keep it up and running.

[jameseboy]

haha, A new ivy cpy almost has no option but to water cool! this was more just a trial for my main, but im still planning on using this system and completing it soon.