Obsidian 1000D 4xGPU loop advice

[Witchdoctor]

If you are sure there are no screws you will have to find the rivets. Only way to take then out is to drill the centers out and re-rivet when done

Just make sure you have space to get the rivet gun in as the factory has the ability to install rivets in places field rivet guns can't get into

You may want to consider using a 360mm rad instead if that gets you the room you need with out modification. Path of least resistance many times is the best path

 

[DaPoets]

Honestly you've done an excellent job!

 

[Alaric]

Anyone with experience with the 1000D?

Besides drooling over it? Not me. LOL It's a pretty new case. I only heard of it about a week before your thread went up, and that was by accident. I Googled the 900D and the 1000D came up.

 

[UMUX]

Great progress. I mounted the 420 rad in the top, which has given me enough space for the radiator ports on the two 480s!




Moving along quickly. This is my second build. Been working 20 years with Macs and Mac Pros and it's fun to have crossed to the 'wild side'. This build is certainly a lot more complicated than my first, which wasn't water cooled.



Not being an expert, I'm a little puzzled how to wire all the fans and their RGB.

The motherboard has 2 RGB headers and 1 CPU fan header, 1 water cooling CPU fan header, 4 system fan headers. And I have the Commander Pro obviously in the back.

From what I can tell, I'll have RGB connections from:

18 fans (16 front and the two exhaust on the back) (no RGB on top)
4 GPUs
CPU block
Res

I have plenty of EK fan and RGB splitters.

Will need to connect the 3 fans on the top too.

Can every RGB header take a splitter so that I can connect 4? If so, the 2 mobo rgb headers gives me 8, and the 2 rgb ports on the commander pro gives me another 8 rgb connects if I use splitters. But that's still not enough, so how can I sort that issue?

As for fans, can every fan port on the commander pro take a fan splitter? Or should I use fan splitters on the motherboard fan headers?

 

[JrClocker]

I don't think you can use splitters on the RGB ports. You have to connect and daisy chain multiple RGB hubs.

http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?p=946662

http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=173880

Also, the Corsair iCUE software will control the RGBs for the fans.

The Corsair Commander Pro has 2 LED headers, fan control inputs, 4 temperature probes, and also has two USB headers (for plugging in the other Lighting Nodes)

 

[TwoTone]

I'm only on my second watercooling build. My current one is in a temporary case while I wait on my new one. It gave me time to ponder draining the system. One of my radiators is in front and ports on the top like yours.

As I was thinking about moving it all over to the new case I realized what a PIA draining is going to be. Not sure how practical it is, but when I move it to my next case- ports will be on bottom for maintenance ease.

I can't imagine the PIA it's going to be to drain those two huge front rads of yours.

If the ports are on the bottom, you could run a line between the two inside ports and a splitter off one of the other ones with a check valve for draining. Then it ends up the lowest point in the system and drains both those huge rads. .

 

[Witchdoctor]

The build looks like it is really coming along


Nice work man, not so sure on the RBG stuff ?

 

[Zerileous]

Not sure if the corsair controllers only work with corsair fans or any fans. I would contact EK for suggestions since you're using EK fans.

 

[UMUX]

Ok. I believe the Corsair RGB LED Hubs only works on Corsair fans. In hindsight, it was probably a mistake to order EK fans given I have so many that needs to be synced up.

Maybe I could daisy chain several Commander Pros, but they only have 2 LED out each (but can run a splitter on each LED out I think). If I daisy 4 I should have enough. Must be a better way though...

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I'm only on my second watercooling build. My current one is in a temporary case while I wait on my new one. It gave me time to ponder draining the system. One of my radiators is in front and ports on the top like yours.

As I was thinking about moving it all over to the new case I realized what a PIA draining is going to be. Not sure how practical it is, but when I move it to my next case- ports will be on bottom for maintenance ease.

I can't imagine the PIA it's going to be to drain those two huge front rads of yours.

If the ports are on the bottom, you could run a line between the two inside ports and a splitter off one of the other ones with a check valve for draining. Then it ends up the lowest point in the system and drains both those huge rads. .

Yes I was thinking about that. I have that HDD box where I've placed the pump and there's really no space for the front rad ports to be on the bottom. Unless I remove the box. The 1000D case though, does have the two front rads on a slide out tray. So in order to take the rads out, I would just have to disconnect all the fans and rgb (each fan has two cables). And disconnect the two tubes going in and out of the two rads. Then i should be able to slide the tray out - disconnect the tray and turn it up side down. NOT ideal, but it does seem somewhat feasible.

 

[UMUX]

Excuse the bad image, just using one from my phone as I'm not by the computer. But here's the loop the way I see it. And you can see where I was planning to place the drain too.

 

[godevskii]

Just a piece of advice, over time you are going to regret going with ek angled rotary adapters, they are among the worst, if you have a slight strain on the tube runs with time when you have to do some maintenance you will experience leaks (i have more then once) i prefer to avoid angled adapters but since you are going rigid you don't have many options but the brands i recommend using are bitspower or enzotech.
Swiftech, koolance or xspc i have tried them and had no leaks but they are also very loose, so they don't inspire much confidence...
Alphacool, ek, aquacomputer, watercool, just keep away...

 

[UMUX]

Just a piece of advice, over time you are going to regret going with ek angled rotary adapters, they are among the worst, if you have a slight strain on the tube runs with time when you have to do some maintenance you will experience leaks (i have more then once) i prefer to avoid angled adapters but since you are going rigid you don't have many options but the brands i recommend using are bitspower or enzotech.
Swiftech, koolance or xspc i have tried them and had no leaks but they are also very loose, so they don't inspire much confidence...
Alphacool, ek, aquacomputer, watercool, just keep away...

Thanks for pointing that out. Once I start working on the tubing, I will make an effort to keep the fittings to a minimum. What your thoughts on EK's HDC compression fittings?

 

[godevskii]

I never worked with hard tube, only soft and their ACF compression are fine, so i can't really comment on those, ask around for someone you have tried them to give input.

 

[UMUX]

I just got myself a nasty surprise. The 4th bottom GPU waterblock won't fit in. It hits the bottom ports on the motherboard!! The SYSFANs, RGB, USB3 and the front panel pins

The way I see it, my options are to get another motherboard, but I can't see I got many options.

Alternatively, I could mount the 4th GPU vertically, but I'll have quite a bit of a challenge doing the loop. That means the loop has to go into the 4th GPU on the front, come back down, go under / or around the vertical card, then over to a Terminal x 3 behind it... Not sure if I could make that work but don't see many alternatives. Any ideas?

 

[godevskii]

Even if you change MB there's no guarantee that it wont hit ports on new MB because the port are standard and they are somewhat in the same places, so i guess your best option is to mount the 4th gpu vertically on the mini-itx board slot. If making the runs on hard tube is a problem maybe you can make those runs on soft tube they should stay hidden behind the gpu itself.

 

[UMUX]

Even if you change MB there's no guarantee that it wont hit ports on new MB because the port are standard and they are somewhat in the same places, so i guess your best option is to mount the 4th gpu vertically on the mini-itx board slot. If making the runs on hard tube is a problem maybe you can make those runs on soft tube they should stay hidden behind the gpu itself.

That works. Here's the latest progress. I've ordered a Terminal x 3 block from EK and a PCIe riser. Then I'll mount the riser to the PSU shroud. That should work.



Pardon the rough drawing, but the loop will be something like this:


Just ran a power test to the fans. 20 out of 21 works, so that's a good start. Sounded like an airplane but of course, now it's full power...

 

[godevskii]

Man that case is starting to look very small , we get the idea of the loop, there's just one thing that is making confusion to me, you are going for a negative pressure inside the case with 2 fan in and 19 out (granted that 16 of them are push/pull) but still are you sure that those 2 fans will be enough to feed the rads with fresh air, also wont that negative pressure pull air and dust from every place air can go inside the case making the case dirty?

 

[UMUX]

Man that case is starting to look very small , we get the idea of the loop, there's just one thing that is making confusion to me, you are going for a negative pressure inside the case with 2 fan in and 19 out (granted that 16 of them are push/pull) but still are you sure that those 2 fans will be enough to feed the rads with fresh air, also wont that negative pressure pull air and dust from every place air can go inside the case making the case dirty?

Thanks, yes it doesn’t look as spacious as it once did, that I can tell you!

Hmm, now you’re making me wonder if I got the fan direction wrong. Just to clarify, on the front, the outer fans push air into radiator, while the inner fans pulls from the radiator into the case. On the top, the fans are blowing upwards into the radiator. And on the back, the fans are blowing out of the case (exhaust). The top fans by the way are 140mm 2500rpm fans.

 

[godevskii]

on the front, the outer fans push air into radiator, while the inner fans pulls from the radiator into the case.

I cant see the direction of the push fans but the fans inside need to be rotated to make pull from the rad

On the top, the fans are blowing upwards into the radiator.

Correct.

And on the back, the fans are blowing out of the case (exhaust). The top fans by the way are 140mm 2500rpm fans.

No they are pulling air into the case, you need to rotate them if you want exhaust.

The big problem is in the front rads, you seem to have fans going on opposite directions, you need to correct that.

When i say rotate i mean flip them around.

 

[UMUX]

I cant see the direction of the push fans but the fans inside need to be rotated to make pull from the rad



Correct.



No they are pulling air into the case, you need to rotate them if you want exhaust.

The big problem is in the front rads, you seem to have fans going on opposite directions, you need to correct that.

When i say rotate i mean flip them around.

Well thank you. You've just corrected quite a mistake. You are right. There's no arrows on these fans and not having a lot of experience doing these builds I made assumption based on the how I interpreted the direction of the flow. But looking carefully at this, it's clear I got the direction wrong. I just had to look at the fan and really ask myself the logic behind how a fan works, then it became very clear. That said, I did get the fans on top right. But the exhaust and the two sides of the push pull on the front needs to be flipped... Just as I fixed the cabling But better now than later. Thank you!