JakeOrion
New Member
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2014
- Location
- San Diego, CA
Hey guys and gals. Pretty much new into the case modding business but you gotta start somewhere right?
A bit of a background on my rig:
OC'd to 4.2ghz but I have speed step enabled to save a bit of power and extend the life of the chip. Additional details include:
Case: (thread title) ThermalTake Armor+ VH6000BWS Full Tower
PSU: Corsair HX1000W
GPU: SLI EVGA GTX 780 FTW
HD's: 1x Seagate Barracuda 1TB (Primary) and 1x WD 3TB (Storage)
Monitors: 2 Acer's; 27" H274HL 1980x1080 and 19" V193 1280x1024
Key & Mouse: Logitech G110 and G500
Generic DVD/CD Writer
NZXT Sentry-2 Fan Controller
Now that's outta the way, on to my thread.
A few days ago, I noticed my rig started to act funny. I was OC'd to 4.2ghz, mind you. My idle temps were okay, but I was getting into the high 70s when I was under a load:
IDLE:
LOAD:
I was running a Corsair H80 and it did the job just fine, but I guess it just started to wear out. Started getting the dreaded blue screens and reverted to stock settings, I was still getting the same temperatures.
Great. Time to pour money into the PC again.
But I'm not a benchmark/crazy overclocker; I like to OC my chips to just a gig or so, as I don't see any other benefit beyond other than benchmarks. Not my thing honestly.
So, other than going custom water loop, what am I going to do? Been hearing good things about the H5/6/7/8/90 series and such, but I don't want to run into the same problem that I did on my old H80. I wanted to with a bigger radiator because the summer months here are pretty hot (San Diego, CA). So, now I'm wanting something around the Corsair H105 or H110 size. [I'm sticking with Corsair because they have been very good to me, especially in regards to returning faulty memory.]
I figured bigger is better, I went with the H110.
Now that I'm ready to go, I'll start tearing down my system to bare bones.
BEFORE:
If you don't have the time, wire management can be atrocious in this case:
So now I'm down to bare bones:
Installed a fan to pull hot air out of the system on top of the case:
The problem was a wired mesh that covered the top of the case. I figured it would restrict air flow so I cut a squarish shape hole for easier ventilation, and I figured nobody is going to be able to see the mesh anyway.
Lots of caffeine at this point, as I worked well into 3 in the morning just tearing it down:
Originally, my PSU fan was facing upwards, but I turned it upside down to allow more airflow and reduce dust that was going into the PSU. It also allowed additional cable length by 2 inches, which was a BIG difference on how tight the cables were going to their various connections.
The two ThermalTake 120mm fans on the bottom of the case were replaced by two Corsair 140mm blue LED fans:
Then came the problem; the H110 was just simply too big to install anywhere inside the case. I tried mounting it on the bottom of the case, but several problems arose: the tubing would rub against my 780 cards and the hot air blown into the case would be feeding directly into my bottom 780, increasing heat. Crap. Now what am I going to do?
So I begin searching around the internet on my spare PC trying to find solutions. After several hours, I came across this thread:
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=557743
I loved Revivalist's idea on how he mounted the radiator on the back of his case. (Thank you Revivalist!) I immediately knew this would be the solution I needed to install the radiator outside the case. I would have to cut a hole in the back fan grill large enough to allow the cooling block to fit through. Before I did that, I checked to see if the H110 would fit on the existing holes for mounting the rear fan. Naturally, it didn't. The holes were drilled for 120mm fans and there was no way to mount the 140mm even if I drilled new holes because of how the back of the case was setup. The motherboard rear panel ensured that. So...back to square one.
I had to find a radiator that would fit a 120mm setup. The Corsair H105 was it:
Now comes the snip (again, Revivalist's idea in his thread):
I figured I would cut the front grill as well to improve airflow, as well as replace the previous 140mm that came with the case:
Modding done, now it came down to rebuilding the PC, starting with the motherboard and cooler:
Video cards installed:
A closer look at the rear setup. I also melted and put plastic tubing around the edges of the grill to ensure the water tubing wouldn't be cut open, as well as cut my fingers open when handling the case:
The setup is solid, but next time when I tear it down I'm drilling two holes for the top radiator screws for extra support. I figured I'll just overkill it for peace of mind. For now, it works.
Putting it all together:
Close up of the cooler setup. The screws I had to use were 3" 6-32 flat head screws. The problem was that if the screw was mounted on the first set of holes in the fan, I was short by an inch. So, I had to drill the holes bigger to mount the screws on the back set of holes, allowing the radiator fans to breathe comfortably:
While I was at it, I was going to completely redo all my wiring for improved air flow. It took me a day in handling the wiring alone.
Three days later, the rig is rebuilt and running again:
How about the temps?
Not much improvement on idle:
But I wasn't too concerned with idle; load was my problem:
Vast improvement from high 70s. Now it doesn't even break 66 after 10 hours of BurnTest. Also rock solid with BF4 at max settings.
Of course my rig is never complete: my next purchase will be an SSD 1TB+ and upgrading to Corsair's Dominator 64gb set. Also will be a PSU upgrade to 1500W for 3-way SLI and eventually 4-way SLI when the 1000 series come out.
Comments welcomed, as well as tips for improvement.
Thanks for reading!
A bit of a background on my rig:
OC'd to 4.2ghz but I have speed step enabled to save a bit of power and extend the life of the chip. Additional details include:
Case: (thread title) ThermalTake Armor+ VH6000BWS Full Tower
PSU: Corsair HX1000W
GPU: SLI EVGA GTX 780 FTW
HD's: 1x Seagate Barracuda 1TB (Primary) and 1x WD 3TB (Storage)
Monitors: 2 Acer's; 27" H274HL 1980x1080 and 19" V193 1280x1024
Key & Mouse: Logitech G110 and G500
Generic DVD/CD Writer
NZXT Sentry-2 Fan Controller
Now that's outta the way, on to my thread.
A few days ago, I noticed my rig started to act funny. I was OC'd to 4.2ghz, mind you. My idle temps were okay, but I was getting into the high 70s when I was under a load:
IDLE:
LOAD:
I was running a Corsair H80 and it did the job just fine, but I guess it just started to wear out. Started getting the dreaded blue screens and reverted to stock settings, I was still getting the same temperatures.
Great. Time to pour money into the PC again.
But I'm not a benchmark/crazy overclocker; I like to OC my chips to just a gig or so, as I don't see any other benefit beyond other than benchmarks. Not my thing honestly.
So, other than going custom water loop, what am I going to do? Been hearing good things about the H5/6/7/8/90 series and such, but I don't want to run into the same problem that I did on my old H80. I wanted to with a bigger radiator because the summer months here are pretty hot (San Diego, CA). So, now I'm wanting something around the Corsair H105 or H110 size. [I'm sticking with Corsair because they have been very good to me, especially in regards to returning faulty memory.]
I figured bigger is better, I went with the H110.
Now that I'm ready to go, I'll start tearing down my system to bare bones.
BEFORE:
If you don't have the time, wire management can be atrocious in this case:
So now I'm down to bare bones:
Installed a fan to pull hot air out of the system on top of the case:
The problem was a wired mesh that covered the top of the case. I figured it would restrict air flow so I cut a squarish shape hole for easier ventilation, and I figured nobody is going to be able to see the mesh anyway.
Lots of caffeine at this point, as I worked well into 3 in the morning just tearing it down:
Originally, my PSU fan was facing upwards, but I turned it upside down to allow more airflow and reduce dust that was going into the PSU. It also allowed additional cable length by 2 inches, which was a BIG difference on how tight the cables were going to their various connections.
The two ThermalTake 120mm fans on the bottom of the case were replaced by two Corsair 140mm blue LED fans:
Then came the problem; the H110 was just simply too big to install anywhere inside the case. I tried mounting it on the bottom of the case, but several problems arose: the tubing would rub against my 780 cards and the hot air blown into the case would be feeding directly into my bottom 780, increasing heat. Crap. Now what am I going to do?
So I begin searching around the internet on my spare PC trying to find solutions. After several hours, I came across this thread:
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=557743
I loved Revivalist's idea on how he mounted the radiator on the back of his case. (Thank you Revivalist!) I immediately knew this would be the solution I needed to install the radiator outside the case. I would have to cut a hole in the back fan grill large enough to allow the cooling block to fit through. Before I did that, I checked to see if the H110 would fit on the existing holes for mounting the rear fan. Naturally, it didn't. The holes were drilled for 120mm fans and there was no way to mount the 140mm even if I drilled new holes because of how the back of the case was setup. The motherboard rear panel ensured that. So...back to square one.
I had to find a radiator that would fit a 120mm setup. The Corsair H105 was it:
Now comes the snip (again, Revivalist's idea in his thread):
I figured I would cut the front grill as well to improve airflow, as well as replace the previous 140mm that came with the case:
Modding done, now it came down to rebuilding the PC, starting with the motherboard and cooler:
Video cards installed:
A closer look at the rear setup. I also melted and put plastic tubing around the edges of the grill to ensure the water tubing wouldn't be cut open, as well as cut my fingers open when handling the case:
The setup is solid, but next time when I tear it down I'm drilling two holes for the top radiator screws for extra support. I figured I'll just overkill it for peace of mind. For now, it works.
Putting it all together:
Close up of the cooler setup. The screws I had to use were 3" 6-32 flat head screws. The problem was that if the screw was mounted on the first set of holes in the fan, I was short by an inch. So, I had to drill the holes bigger to mount the screws on the back set of holes, allowing the radiator fans to breathe comfortably:
While I was at it, I was going to completely redo all my wiring for improved air flow. It took me a day in handling the wiring alone.
Three days later, the rig is rebuilt and running again:
How about the temps?
Not much improvement on idle:
But I wasn't too concerned with idle; load was my problem:
Vast improvement from high 70s. Now it doesn't even break 66 after 10 hours of BurnTest. Also rock solid with BF4 at max settings.
Of course my rig is never complete: my next purchase will be an SSD 1TB+ and upgrading to Corsair's Dominator 64gb set. Also will be a PSU upgrade to 1500W for 3-way SLI and eventually 4-way SLI when the 1000 series come out.
Comments welcomed, as well as tips for improvement.
Thanks for reading!
