FEATURED Build Log: Water & Wood

MIAHALLEN said:

Yes, I think its pulling even more now, as I've been able to get it running well without shutting down....but I lost my kill-o-watt so I cannot verify right now.

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It's worth noting that power supplies are rated for output and have inefficiency, so the pull at the wall is gonna be 10-30% higher than the output.

I'm well aware

MIAHALLEN said:

I'm well aware

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Wasn't for you so much as anyone who might wander in here (due to my break over the summer, I'm not sure to what extent that was explained or where you're getting your numbers)

NP bro, its a very good point

So, a bit earlier I mentioned that I was working on a frame to surround the fan wall. I finally got a chance to finish it up today. I started by putting the frame together.



Notice the small burn mark. When you use a router, you have to ensure the bearing is loose so the guide will lead you without spinning. The bit I was using was a bit older, and the guide got stuck and was spinning, which burned the entire length of the board. I sanded most of it off. But this spot got a bit deeper.....thank goodness one of the edges has to face the rear



A quick test fit shows my measurements were just about right.



Now the hard part. You may recall near the beginning of this project, I cut the holes on the fans extra wide to allow the screws to pass through the outer opening and mount the fans from the inner part of the frame. No big deal at the time, but then I received these beautiful dust filters from Team ColdZero, and they would normally mount to the fans with said holes. So now I needed to come up with a solution, when I mounted them the first time, it was a bit of a rushed job with zip ties. But I wanted something a bit more flush and secure.

Then I came up with an idea. I'd glue a washer to the back side of the holes, then use rivets to secure the filters into place. Here are the washers glued into place (this was a major PITA).







Next, I got to rivetin'....after I was finished I realized I had forgotten to put the frame back on before riveting. Which has to be done first :banghead:



So, I'll fast forward a bit to after drilling out all the original rivets...recovering all my washers...gluing the washers back into place (AGAIN!)...and then re-riveting all 48 spots.



Next I removed the protective film from the inner grill for the filter.



Next I removed the protective film for the outer filter grill...



...and got the filters all remounted.



Here are some semi-final shots. The rig is 99% finished at this point. I'm still toying with the idea of swapping the PSU with an AX1200. But this thing seems to be holding up to the heavy load. I'm just not sure if pushing it this hard is a good idea for the long run. I'm regularly seeing 1300-1500W draw on my kill-o-watt while gaming.

I'll also replace the Koolance QDC fittings when I get my replacements from RMA. Until then, I'm calling this finished I'll get my blog written up soon. I'd like to say thank you once again to Swiftech for their support, and to Team ColdZero for these beautiful additions....and I'd also like to thank the community as a whole for watching, commenting, and supporting me through this build.

I've already started work on my next project (MAX11Lv3), please make sure you check it out

Very clean man! Yeah, those rivets do look like a PITA - especially for how many there were!

Question: what are your ambient temps, when maxing out those 580s? (pulling the heat inwards, and out the back, correct?)

epic build man, good job.

eduncan911 said:

Very clean man! Yeah, those rivets do look like a PITA - especially for how many there were!

Question: what are your ambient temps, when maxing out those 580s? (pulling the heat inwards, and out the back, correct?)

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I did some testing in post #83

ShortAlieN said:

epic build man, good job.

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Thanks

MIAHALLEN said:

I did some testing in post #83

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Yep, saw that post before. And, I didn't want to be one of those, "What are your temps?" guys.

But, you don't list any Ambient temps there. Those are CPU and GPU cores, for as far as I can see.

I'm talking motherboard Ambient temps. I'm asking, because I'm having a hard time keeping mine under 45C under full load (955Mhz on 3x 580s like yours) after a few hours of gaming. Reading online, it seems there isn't a lot of Ambient temp numbers out there. Before isntalling the rear fan to pull that heat out, I actually logged upwards of 69C ambient!!! Holy smokes!

And no matter how large the radiators are, the amount of heat removed is the same amount - just you get more cooler air in your setup. So, I am curious to what your ambient temps are with such large radiator surface area. Versus my stacked "tunnel of heat" in my setup (see sig for those curious to mine).

-E

Beautiful finish to your build Miah, excellent work!!

eduncan911 said:

Yep, saw that post before. And, I didn't want to be one of those, "What are your temps?" guys.

But, you don't list any Ambient temps there. Those are CPU and GPU cores, for as far as I can see.

I'm talking motherboard Ambient temps. I'm asking, because I'm having a hard time keeping mine under 45C under full load (955Mhz on 3x 580s like yours) after a few hours of gaming. Reading online, it seems there isn't a lot of Ambient temp numbers out there. Before isntalling the rear fan to pull that heat out, I actually logged upwards of 69C ambient!!! Holy smokes!

And no matter how large the radiators are, the amount of heat removed is the same amount - just you get more cooler air in your setup. So, I am curious to what your ambient temps are with such large radiator surface area. Versus my stacked "tunnel of heat" in my setup (see sig for those curious to mine).

-E

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My motherboard is getting toasty I'm sure, but I have not been monitoring temps. My room temp was in the mid 20s during that testing.

TBH - I'm a bit confused by your question. "Ambient" usually is used in reference to the temperature in the given environment. So for me it was around 25C. The temp of the chipset on the mobo should not be called "ambient", but rather "chipset" temp

hokiealumnus said:

Beautiful finish to your build Miah, excellent work!!

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Thanks Jeremy

MIAHALLEN said:

My motherboard is getting toasty I'm sure, but I have not been monitoring temps. My room temp was in the mid 20s during that testing.

TBH - I'm a bit confused by your question. "Ambient" usually is used in reference to the temperature in the given environment. So for me it was around 25C. The temp of the chipset on the mobo should not be called "ambient", but rather "chipset" temp

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Your assumption of my definition of Ambient is correct. The given environment is the surround air near the chipset and mophets/caps/etc. Basically, around the air-cooled heatsinks on the motherboard. There are usually 1 or 2 thermal sensors located on the motherboard to measure this. You can run HWMonitor64 or some other similar application to read it.

When Intel introduced the 775 chipset/layout, they drastically changed the layout of the components hear the CPU. Specifically, you would have noticed that the capacitors and VRs are located in a way that the CPU Heatsink/fan combo, which was changed to blow directly "downwards" with 775, to take advantage of the air being blown downwards to cool the heatsinks. You can still see this today with just about any 1155 or 1366 pin socket - they are all designed for air to flow downwards from the CPU and then out over the fins of these heatsinks.

Along with the 775 specifications, Intel also announced a specification that the motherboard not exceed 38 C ambient temps, for optimum cooling of these components.

It's no big deal really, as the parts actualyl radiate around 40 to 50C anyways. But to have the cooling ability, the ambient air being blown over the components should be a lower temp than the components themselves.

Hence, why I'd like to know your motherboard's "Ambient Temp" reading for that area because I didn't see any small fans to cycle air over those components.

I'm having a hell of a time keeping mine under 45C under full stress of the GPUs for a few hours (gaming at 6000x1080, BF3 w/Ultra settings and 2.6 GB of VRam used!).

As mentioned earlier, I was seeing upwards of 69C before in that area! So, I mounted one of the Dell original 120mm 6A 8000rpm fans in the very rear of the case, spinning at 800rpms at idle - but under gaming, i have to crank it up to 2000rpms to expend enough air. Any faster doesn't seem to affect the ambient air. Will most likely add a few small 40mm fans along the edge of hte back to expel the remaining heat.

With your setup, I'm assuming you are pulling air inwards from your legs area, over the motherboard, and then out the back. That's why I was very curious to your "Ambient Temp" over the motherboard area.

My office stays nice and cool as well, unless I am stressing the GPUs - it gets pretty damn hot in here. But, that's just a cooling issue I have with my office. Can't wait for the Winter! Dreading the summer...

OK, I'm following you now.

eduncan911 said:

With your setup, I'm assuming you are pulling air inwards from your legs area, over the motherboard, and then out the back. That's why I was very curious to your "Ambient Temp" over the motherboard area.

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^^^You are correct, I'll check it out and report back when I get a chance

Ambient = room temperature. What you are asking for is case temperature. Ambient is the air before it sees any sort of computer parts at all, once it starts to be heated, it's typically gonna be case temp.

Looks really sharp Miah. It's been awesome watching you step-by-step complete this masterpiece/beast-you-call-a-computer.

Very Nice Finish...

now on to watch MAX11Lv3

My goodness it's been far to long since I've been back to this thread for results, it's wonderful man terrific job on everything. So clean.

Thanks everyone...it took way too long though

frank anderson said:

Very Nice Finish...

now on to watch MAX11Lv3

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Right-O

Well, I knew this was coming sooner or later. I broke the rig down today to install my new Koolance QDCs I got back from RMA. And I figured I'd use the opportunity to check the nickle plating on my EK water blocks. Sure enough, it's RMA time

Damn. Yeah, that's why I spend the extra $50 premium cost to just get EVGA's 580 Hydrocopper 2 versions, straight from the factory (plus the costs for the connectors between them). The EK stuff looks so rad, but the history of them lately, as you mentioned earlier, just scared me away from the chance of taking down my daily-development-and-must-be-dependable rig.

Though, I had to RMA two of the threee when I first opened them because of stripped threads - from the factory! The threads were completely gone on the backside of 2 of the 3 cards I ordered. They were all consecutive in order for the serial numbers too.