Build Log: Caselabs TH10 Dual 480 Loop

[Zoinks]

I have been planning a water cooling build for months. I owe a lot of thanks to the members here for providing some helpful guidance. I tried not to be too much of a pest as I was trying to figure out where I wanted to go with water cooling.

I have actually had all of my parts for a couple of weeks. But a crazy busy work schedule has kept me from it. This is the first weekend I have had off in two months, so I will be starting my build today.

This is a transplant build. The system was put together two months ago in a Thermaltake Armor+ case using the following components:

EVGA X58 Classified 3 Motherboard
EVGA Superclocked GTX570 in Triple SLI
Intel Core i7 970 6-Core CPU
24GB of G.SKILL DDR3 1600 memory
Crucial 128GB SATA III Solid State Drive
Two 2TB Western Digital Caviar Black 6.0Gb/s SATA Hard Drives
Lite On Blu-Ray Burner
Corsair AX1200 Power Supply

Here's a photo of that build:

I'm quite satisfied with the performance of this rig and my only complaint is that the highest OC I can get is 4.0GHz before temps become a concern. So my hope is that with water cooling I'll be able to get that up to about 4.6GHz. I've pushed the Cooler Master V10 as far as it can go with this processor.

I went through several iterations when it came to choosing a case. The Thermaltake Armor+ is a nice enough case. The only thing I really don't like about it is the plastic shroud/bezel on top of the case. Other than that, it is well built, sturdy, and has plenty of room inside. I thought about keeping it and simply re-building the system with water cooling. If I was going to do a CPU only loop then I might have done just that.

But then I saw the Silverstone TJ07 case and throught it was a thing of beauty. The bottom section was ideal for water cooling. And so I ordered one. When it arrived and I opened it up I was concerned. The case was really nice, but it seemed a little cramped to me. At the time I was still thinking about just a CPU loop and felt that putting a single 360 or 480 rad in the Silverstone was fine. But then I started to think seriously about water cooling the GPUs, and was worried that two rads might make things a bit tight. I wanted to avoid modding the case. For one, I really don't have those skills. Secondly, I have seen plenty of pictures of builds that are very cramped and was determined to avoid that. Even if I had to spend a lot more on a case with enough room to grow. So I was considering between the Mountain Mods Ascension and Danger Den Double Wide cases. In the middle of my case deliberations someone here suggested that I consider a Caselabs case. So I checked it out and ended up buying one.

It is massive. So massive in fact, that I will have to move my office desk about 5" to the left to make room for it. But I think it will be worth it. There is plenty of room in the TH10. The case is divided into two sides, a component side and a power supply side. It can take up to five 480 rads. I will be mounting my two 480s in the two mounts at the top. Options for this case are plentiful. I added a water cooling pump mounting tray and power supply support bracket, each for an additional $10. The case was a little over $600 delivered. It is modular, has a removable motherboard tray with CPU socket cut out, and has pre-cut cable/tubing routing holes with rubber grommets. It's very well made and is available in matte black and gloss white. I like the matte black finish though I wish Caselabs would consider offering a gloss black finish.

Here's a pic of my water cooling components, sitting on a bed in a spare bedroom that I am in the process of coverting into a coffee bar.

CPU Loop

Swiftech MCR420-QP Radiator
Swiftech MCP655 Pump
XSPC Acrylic Tank Reservior for Laing D5 Pump
Koolance CPU 370 Water Block
PrimoFlex Pro LRT Blue UV Tubing 3/8" ID 5/8" OD
Bitspower Compression and Rotary Compression Fittings

GPU Loop

Swiftech MCR420-QP Radiator
Swiftech MCP655 Pump
XSPC Acrylic Tank Reservior for Laing D5 Pump
Three Koolance VID-NX580 Water Blocks
PrimoFlex Pro LRT Red UV Tubing 3/8" ID 5/8" OD
Bitspower Compression and Rotary Compression Fittings
Danger Den SLI connectors

Both loops will use distilled water, PT nuke, and have a kill coil in them.

I went with Cooler Master SickleFlow 120mm 2000RPM fans. This was another thing I labored over. I really wanted Scythe Gentle Typhoon 1850RPM fans but no one seemed to have them in stock. So then I thought about the Enermax Magma fans. They were available and I came very close to buying them...but I had to ask myself if I was really prepared to spend $200 on fans. I decided to look for a lower cost alternative. I was going to buy Yate Loons. They are inexpensive and seem to be highly regarded. But then I saw the Cooler Master fans for $8.95 each and felt their airflow and noise ratings were what I was after.

While this build is in progress I will be using my IBM Thinkpad laptop. I can live without my main rig for three or four days. I'm hoping to get the assembly work done over the weekend and have both loops filled, leak tested, and running by Tuesday. I'd like to have my system back in production by mid week. I think that's a reasonable expectation.

I have read all of the materials I could find on building and watched enough videos on Youtube so I think I have a good handle on what I need to do. I have laid out a plan and all I need to do is take my time and execute it.

It will probably be a few days before I post back with pictures and comments.

 

[Realee]

Looks like you've got your work cut our for you
Subbed to see this through!

Looks like a nice build though!

 

[Zoinks]

I completed my build and leak tested it for 12 hours. There are no leaks.

However, when I power up my system I get no video and no POST code on the motherboard. The motherboard (EVGA X58 Classified 3) otherwise shows all indications of being powered.

I have checked and recabled all of the power connections. I also tried to get the system to POST with a single GPU. Obviously I didn't pull cards, but I did remove the SLI bridge and PCIe power on the other two cards.

Suggestions are welcome. I am trying to avoid having to tear down the entire system.

 

[Zoinks]

Nevermind. I am going to drain both loops and tear down the entire system as soon as I can find the time to do it.

 

[rdoctor]

I completed my build and leak tested it for 12 hours. There are no leaks.

However, when I power up my system I get no video and no POST code on the motherboard. The motherboard (EVGA X58 Classified 3) otherwise shows all indications of being powered.

I have checked and recabled all of the power connections. I also tried to get the system to POST with a single GPU. Obviously I didn't pull cards, but I did remove the SLI bridge and PCIe power on the other two cards.

Suggestions are welcome. I am trying to avoid having to tear down the entire system.

Nice system! You might want to try the following if not posting: Check to see if the CPU power connector is plugged in, then boot with only one memory module and one VGA card. Clear the CMOS and check the battery if that doesn't work. These steps usually get me going almost always.

 

[Zoinks]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I think a complete tear down is in order.

This was a perfectly functioning system before the WC build. Once I got alll of the obvious things checked and out of the way, such as BIOS reset button stuck, power connections, etc., all of the remaining troubleshooting steps would require that I drain the WC loops and take the system apart.

So I will start with the GPU loop and take the video cards out. My main goal at the moment is to get to a point where I get a POST code (any code) on the MB. If removing the video cards doesn't help then I will drain the CPU loop and remove the motherboard from the case, put a standard heat sink on the processor, and try a different video card on my test bench.

It's possible that something bad happened to the motherboard in transit from the old case to the new case.

I can't say that I am happy about having a problem that unraveled two days of hard work, and there is a great deal more work yet to do. But this is what you sometimes have to deal with in the computer hobby. It pisses me off on the rare occasions that it happens, but you have to stew a few moments and then get past it.

On the bright side my water cooling system build went together very nicely and I was quite impressed with how it looked and the very low noise. Unfortunately it turned out to be a practice run and I will have to do it all over again once I get my system problem sorted out. I took a lot of pictures that I fully intend to post, but not until I get my system back on its feet.

The problem for me is time. I am a very busy IT consultant and I don't know when I will have time to dig into the problem. It may be another week or two. Until then I will have to make due with my IBM Thinkpad.

 

[Conumdrum]

You got a great attitude. It IS a hobby and 'stuff' happens. Good luck.

 

[Zoinks]

Thanks for the sentiment. It's the only attitude I could have. There is simply too much time and money tied up in this system to walk away from it. The case and water cooling components alone was nearly $2,000. So even if I need a new motherboard or processor I'll have to suck it up and just get it done.

I'm hoping that I won't have to replace any hardware components, but I will do what is necessary to get this system up and running.

 

[Zoinks]

I have drained the GPU loop and removed all of the graphics cards. Still no POST codes. I'll take the rest of the system apart later today.

 

[psionic98]

What codes are you getting on your mobo where it stops before post?

 

[Zoinks]

None. That's the problem. There could be all sorts of causes. I'm going to drain the CPU loop and remove the motherboard later today and put it on my test bench. I have a spare power supply and video card. I don't have a spare Socket 1366 motherboard or processor. So if nothing turns up on the test bench I will be ordering some hardware.

 

[psionic98]

if your mobo isnt posting codes even i would think PSU issue or straight mobo died.. check caps etc

 

[Zoinks]

It isn't the power supply. The board won't post with my spare PS. It has to be the motherboard or CPU, and the smart money is on the motherboard.

 

[Zoinks]

I have the motherboard out of the case and will put it on my test bench with a different video card...hopefully tomorrow. Just in case I don't make any further progress I have opened a case with EVGA to start the RMA process.

The silver lining in this cloud is that I have now built, filled, drained, and took down a dual loop water cooling system and had no problems with that at all, though making sure I got all of the water out of the GPU blocks took a little bit of work. I am getting a lot of practice at it and getting it all back together once my system issue is squared away should be fairly simple.

 

[Zoinks]

Ok. Some progress. I was able to get the motherboard to POST on the test bench. I looks like I might have a problem with a standoff on the motherboard tray of the new case.

I'm hoping I'll have this resolved today.

 

[Zoinks]

The progress was short lived. The board is not POSTing on subsequent attempts on the test bench. I got it to post without a video card. Added a basic PCIe ATI card and the board would not POST. Took the card back out and the board still would not POST.

Conclusion. Motherboard failed.

I'll press EVGA for a an RMA. This really sucks but it is what it is.

 

[Chozo]

Sucks that your motherboard is dead, but congratulations on getting the two loops setup successfully without any problems. You have nice components (24 GB of RAM? What do you do with it all? ). Can't wait to see the photos of the build!

 

[Zoinks]

I have worked through the tech support/rma process with EVGA and this morning I received an email from them to submit an RMA request. I really don't know how long the process will take but a week to ten days turnaround sounds about right.

I know that I can never be in this position again where my main rig is down for two to three weeks. My laptop is ok for field use when I happen to be onsite at a client, but it is woefully inadequate as a workstation. So I have decided to buy another motherboard, and will use the RMA board I get back from EVGA as a spare. I am also going to upgrade my CPU to a i7 990X. I'll use the i7 970 as a spare processor, though in 30 plus years of computing I have never had a CPU fail on me...but there is always a first time.

I already have two spare power supplies: a 1200 watt and 850 watt. I also have a number of video cards I can use in a pinch, though I think it unlikely that three GTX570s would fail at the same time.

I probably won't have anything new to report for a week or so. I have a couple of client projects I will be working on and won't have time to spend on the deveoping saga with my workstation.

 

[Zoinks]

I labored over what do next since I really didn't want to be without my system until I could get around to sending my board back to EVGA.

I kicked around a couple of options over the last few days. One was to abandon the socket 1366 platform and replace it with a Sandy Brdige CPU and MB. A second option was to buy another X58 motherboard (I decided that upgrading the CPU to a 990X wasn't worth the money).

Before my EVGA Classified 3 failed I was pretty happy with the performance of my system. I don't run a lot of apps that need a ton of threads but there are a few on my system that do, and I was somewhat reluctant to drop from 12 threads to 8, and from 24GB to 16GB of memory.

I decided that it would be better to stay with the i7 970 processor and get another X58 motherboard. The problem for me was deciding on which board to get. There were a few things about the EVGA board that I didn't like so I was determined to get a different board. There wasn't really much to choose from that interested me. I would have bought the ASUS Rampage III Extreme but not having a debug LED was a deal breaker. So after reading through a lot of threads I ended up buying the ASUS Rampage III Extreme Black Edition. I know the board has a few issues (most MBs do), it is damned expensive, and ASUS seems more interested these days in marketing and selling products than in supporting them. But despite this the RIIIE BE was still the best choice for me.

The new hardware will be here on Monday and I am taking next week off of work. So I expect to have my system up and running by Monday night.

 

[Zoinks]

I have successfully completed my build. However, I ended up changing course. I had ordered an Asus Rampage III Black Edition to replace the failed EVGA Classified 3. After having placed that order, I started having second thoughts and wasn't sure if staying on the X58 platform was the best choice. At the last minute I decided that it was time to move on and get a Sandy Bridge, so I ordered an i7 2600K and an Asus Maximus IV Extreme-z motherboard. I kept seeing benchmark data that I couldn't ignore. While my i7 970 was a lot more expensive, the i7 2600K is a better CPU based on what I have seen. I will run the system for another day at stock speed. I'll overclock it tomrrow and run some benchmarks.

Here I have the Koolance CPU-370 water block mounted. The Koolance block comes with a seperate mounting brackett for socket 1155. If you are going to change platforms in mid stream like I did then I strongly recommend that you make sure your existing parts will fit correctly.