PROJECT LOG Yet another HAF-X water cooling project (with possibly funny commentary)

[MasterCraft]

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So I'd like to say up front, other than some possible painting down the road, water cooling this system will be the last mod I do to this system. I'm getting deployed in October, and I plan on building an entirely new rig upon my return.



That being said, allow me to elaborate on the parts being used in watercooling this build.




PARTS LIST

1. Box of misc. Parts.
2. Coolermaster 200mm blue LED Fan.
3. 3x Ultra Kaze 32x120mm Fans.
4. Phyoba 200mm Radiator.
5. Random *** battery.
6. Kill Coil Silver.
7. Arcticlean (arctic silver surface cleaner)
8. mayhem clear Blue UV Dye
9. PT Nuke Biocide
10. a **** load of Bitspower 3/8ID 5/8OD Compression fittings
11. MCP355/XSPC Top
12. Apogee XT
13. World's smallest fan?
14. MCR320
15. Delicious Girl scout cookie.
16. 2x 580 GTX Hydrocopper 2's, 3gb
17. The world's coolest pair of scissors
18. OCOOL filtered distilled water
19. Z-Multi rez
20. Primochill Clear tubing
21. Random assortment of tools and other fittings. etc etc.



I might be missing a few things, but I've got the girl scout cookies, so I think we're good.

So the system in sig will be my base. Stats:

CPU = Intel Core I7 2600K @ 4.5Ghz - 100x45 1.29vcore
MB = ASUS Z77 Sabertooth
RAM = Corsair Vengeance v1.43 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3 2133
VGA = SLI 2x EVGA Superclocked GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) @900/2100
HD = Crucial 256GB
PSU = CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W


Pictured here. With my old video cards (coming out today)




Man that's ugly.


GOALS WITH THIS BUILD

1. 5.0GHZ Stable.
2. Maintain my 900/2100 on the VGA's (I might push them further)
3. Clean up everything, massive cable management + cable sleeving (hasn't arrived yet)
4. Find a way to mount that 200m rad to the side panel
5. Possibly paint the ram blue
5.2. Most importantly, get fat on girl scout cookies.




I'm always open to suggestions, as well as comments, good or bad. I'll be posting pictures over the next couple of days as building commences. I work the next 3 days, but I'll be working during my free time.







Here I go.

 

[MasterCraft]

UPDATE!: 3/27
So I got most of the components started and going. I also half apologize for the ****ty mc****tyness of **** quality of my pictures, the girl is out of town with my quality camera stuff so I'm stuck using a phone for a hot minute.


I also made some good progress with dinner, which I happened to be eating while I was working on the system. Tbone medium rare, ranch style beans, and broccoli with tons of butter, salt and pepper.

<3





It's worth noting good projects require good food and good beer. I'm Irish, it's a thing..

So anyway, I ran into this issue with my fans, every kind of screw I had either wouldn't fit in the radiator (standard computer 3 or 4 size 40-48 thread count screw), I think they were 3-48's, really small. Well they wouldn't fit. See examples below:







So I had to end up drilling through both the top and bottom sections of the
mounting holes on the fans. This was just enough to give it a lip, but still deep enough that the screw could grab and hold it on. think going from "---" to "-_-" - if that makes sense.

If not, compare to above picture.




This grabbed perfectly, Really. I was half impressed with how it came out, tbh expecting it to be a complete ****ing distaster and waste 3 really nice fans. I also greased the bearings with sewing oil on all 3, as they made a ton of noise. (all fans were used and purchased here )





First step was to break down everything, remove my motherboard, all associated hardware, and break down the case. Here you can see the 200mm fans on top of the case, nothing else. I'm really impressed with how well this case is put together, fairly solid. I will note that on the far left of that picture, almost off camera, the top lip of the tabbed portion of the case, catches on the side panel, and has started to bend because I pull on it everytime I take the side off, irritating.





Removal of fans complete, a long with cable swapping and removing the case hardware ground.



DURR STOP HERE DURR




So I spent hours upon hours of hoursness to get the 2 hydrocoppers together, working, and with the correct fitment, as well as get the rest mounted. The fitment isn't spot on, but it's close enough and works, without the prefab bridge that **** gets irritating fast, and removing those bitpower compression fittings was giving me blisters.


+ side, no leaks on the fittings department, period.


I didn't take a lot of pictures because I got to working, and 3 hours later I was like, holy **** take pictures, but it came out pretty well.





This was progress, mounted fans and everything, minus cable management of course, almost to filling and testing stages, all I needed was the last radiator installed (which is a 200mm phyoba radiator, purchased from frozen CPU ) and I was going to mount on the door. after numerous fitting tests for placement and measuring tubing, I got it all together.



Radiator up





Radiator Down to show final fitment

The fan will mount on the outside of the case.








The problem? I got to the filling stage, have my external power supply hooked up, no problems, and sure as ****, that phyoba radiator is junk, starts leaking all over, an obvious manufacturing defect. To top it off....., it has the most fragile fins ever, that I've ever seen on any radiator, ever. Did I mention ever? I know how to handle radiators, but you breath on this thing and it bends fins. Ridiculous for a $110 radiator.

This was nothing short of frustrating, because I wanted 2 reservoirs in the loop, and this was a design not commonly seen but I found a way to make it work.

The loop was going to be Reservoir -> Pump -> MCR320 -> CPU -> phyoba 200 -> VGA 1 -> VGA 2 -> reservoir.

unfortunately, due to the crappy quality of the phyoba rad, tomorrow I'll be removing it from the loop, and going straight from CPU to VGA 1, and shortening the loop. Everyone on the forums has told me to do this kind of cooling I should aim for 2 rads, but I guess we'll see.

I made a lot of progress for 5 hours of work, I plan to do some painting and wire management while I leak test tomorrow, so I guess we'll see. It looks really cramped, but I can pull everything out on it's own almost completely independent so I don't worry about spilling, although I'm not really worried about leaks.

 

[MasterCraft]

Reserved.

 

[MasterCraft]

Reserved.

 

[MasterCraft]

Bump + update.