New Water Loop - 56k Warning, Lots o' Photos

hokiealumnus · Apr 12, 2009

Well, it's really late and I'm freaking beat...but who can resist posting pictures of their pretty new loop?! I'm proud of the wire management finally. Previously it had been basically wire the thing together then tie stuff up and clean it. While that 'worked' in a lot of people's view, I was never satisfied. No more. This one was planned from start to finish with wire management in mind. Without major case modification, I think this is very close to the best I can do.

First, the system:

Biostar Tpower I45
Intel E8400 (E0 Stepping)
2x2G G.Skill DDR2-1066 / 5-5-5-15 (F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK)
eVGA 8800GTX
Corsair TX650
Coolermaster RC690

Here are the parts. The loop consists of (in this order):

Swiftech MCP-355 (aka Laing DDC)...
...with an XSPC Acrylic res top
HW Labs Black Ice Pro II (Yes, this is the weak link. It will be upgraded down the road.)
D-Tek Fuzion v.2 on the CPU
Koolance VID-282 on the GPU
Danger Den universal chipset block
...back to the pump; all run with 7/16"ID tubing.

The Corsair TX650...Medusa that must be tamed.

Board prepped.

Loop installed & dry.

How the rad was installed.

Continued...

[Note to anyone getting an XSPC res top - if the bolts didn't come with yours and you're in the good ol' USA, chances are it will be hard to find them. In the US machined bolt system, they are between a 6 and an 8. There is a 7 but nobody carries it. So, if you get one without bolts, do yourself a favor and buy an 8-32 drill & tap set. Threaded #8's right in there after that.

]

hokiealumnus · Apr 12, 2009

Leak testing while everything else gets installed.

Mmm....bubbly.

All done!

Gratuitous self indulgence.

Pretty.

Last one, for good measure.

Hope you enjoyed; thanks for looking!

rainless · Apr 12, 2009

Unorthodox to say the least. You probably could've saved about six inches in tubing... but at least it looks different. Why did you go for yellow dye and red tubing? Mixing the yellow with blue to make green is a nice effect... but then the red tubing again... why not blue or clear tubing?

And what video card is that?

I hear you on the Corsair Medusa effect... those cables can get out of control FAST.

jmgonza6 · Apr 12, 2009

I hate that PSU!!! I just had a go with it when putting this new case together! Good job on the cooling. I guess you needed all that tubing out of the rear to save yourself from kinks right? I have been looking around to find the perfect water cooling set-up so its good to know why people do things a certain way, especially water cooling! Enjoy!

Joe

CharlieCS · Apr 12, 2009

hmmm , turn your rad around drill couple of holes on top of the case where the barbs are and save couple of feet of tubing the one going from res to nb block is kinda long too , am sure the CM case helped with wire management , i have the same one , great job overall

and yeah like u sad the rad is the weak link am not sure what hardware you are running tho

shazza · Apr 12, 2009

Well done! You did a great job with your cable management.

hokiealumnus · Apr 12, 2009

Thanks for the compliments!!

rainless said:
Unorthodox to say the least. You probably could've saved about six inches in tubing... but at least it looks different. Why did you go for yellow dye and red tubing? Mixing the yellow with blue to make green is a nice effect... but then the red tubing again... why not blue or clear tubing?

And what video card is that?

I hear you on the Corsair Medusa effect... those cables can get out of control FAST.

That's no dye, it's straight coolant. I'm using a roughly 2:1 mixture of distilled water:antifreeze plus 1oz/liter of water wetter. It just turns out yellow'ish-green with that combo. I'm not good enough to do dye/light color coordination; those are green LEDs, they just bring out the green that's already in there.

The tubing is orange XSPC 7/16 ID and was given to me, and good tubing for free isn't something to turn down!...thankfully it matched the orange on my board. :beer:

Video card is an EVGA 8800GTX. Added specs to the 1st post, sorry about that.

jmgonza6 said:
I guess you needed all that tubing out of the rear to save yourself from kinks right?

CharlieCS said:
hmmm , turn your rad around drill couple of holes on top of the case where the barbs are and save couple of feet of tubing

There is a method to that madness actually. When I bench, I'll remove the radiator & fans from it....then dunk it in a cooler full of ice water. So the spare tubing does serve a purpose. :attn:

CharlieCS said:
the one going from res to nb block is kinda long too , am sure the CM case helped with wire management , i have the same one , great job overall

Yes; in hindsight that tube should have been shorter, but hey, it doesn't look bad (hopefully) and there definitely aren't going to be any kinks.

Love my CM 690!!

icebob · Apr 12, 2009

Nice job! the only thing missing is some screenshot with some temps!

hokiealumnus · Apr 12, 2009

icebob said:
Nice job! the only thing missing is some screenshot with some temps!

Ask and ye shall receive.

At the same ambient (measured by sys temp) with my old loop, the CPU was folding at 51/52c. These temps (4-5C drop) come from removing a rad (EXOS) and adding a NB block. Nice net all told.

thorilan · Apr 12, 2009

personally i like it but as charlie said you might consider re orienting the rad and saving yourself a few feet of tubing. oh and maybe reducing the amount of antifreeze. both sugestions are based on a performance standpoint and if you arnt OCing hard and just want a cool system and are happy you can completely disregard them.

JimOkc · Apr 12, 2009

Looks unique and very nice Hokie!

AlucardCasull · Apr 12, 2009

Looks nice and clean, do you have temps with the GPU and CPU under load?

hokiealumnus · Apr 12, 2009

thorilan said:
personally i like it but as charlie said you might consider re orienting the rad and saving yourself a few feet of tubing. oh and maybe reducing the amount of antifreeze. both sugestions are based on a performance standpoint and if you arnt OCing hard and just want a cool system and are happy you can completely disregard them.

I OC hard when the time comes. That's the reason for the extra tubing; so I can remove the radiator & fans from it....then dunk it in a cooler full of ice water. Thanks for the tip; I'll dilute it a bit next time I have occasion to open the loop to drain some fluid.

AlucardCasull said:
Looks nice and clean

JimOkc said:
Looks unique and very nice Hokie!

Thanks.

AlucardCasull said:
Looks nice and clean, do you have temps with the GPU and CPU under load?

Didn't before but I do now.

Here is after just over 50min of folding, to give the loop time to warm up.

Overall I'm very pleased. :beer:

AlucardCasull · Apr 13, 2009

Nice temps, im pleased too!

g0dM@n · May 21, 2009

Impressive work, buddy. I wish I could see your wire management in the back... curious what it looks like.

hokiealumnus · May 21, 2009

Thanks; that means a lot coming from the g0dM@n himself! If I ever have time, I'll take it off and take a pic for you. To give you an idea, it took me no less than five minutes of fighting to get the panel back on.

donuts · May 21, 2009

Nice, tells me my triple is going on the back of the case. Thanks!

g0dM@n · May 21, 2009

hokiealumnus said:
Thanks; that means a lot coming from the g0dM@n himself! If I ever have time, I'll take it off and take a pic for you. To give you an idea, it took me no less than five minutes of fighting to get the panel back on.

Haha, thanks.

My old days of tweaking seem to have dulled out a bit. I'm more of the set it and forget it now with a 24/7 good overclock.

As for the fighting to get the panel on, I know EXACTLY what you're talking about. You must have done it similar to how I did.

Did you cut holes behind the motherboard yourself? That's what I had to do with my old case. My current one I didn't really bother for making it look super nice. I just grew lazier and lazier, but definitely use zip ties and such so that it doesn't look nasty, and so that airflow will not be greatly affected.

BobbyBubblehead · May 21, 2009

Shame my wiring lack of effort with ya fancy fruity loops #Chuckles#

its got an almost cycadelic happiness about it with the board colours, pipes `n juice.

V nice :clap:

(note. I sorted most my cables when the new PSU turned up, so you need not have the nightmares anymore

)

hokiealumnus · May 21, 2009

g0dM@n said:
Haha, thanks. My old days of tweaking seem to have dulled out a bit. I'm more of the set it and forget it now with a 24/7 good overclock.

As for the fighting to get the panel on, I know EXACTLY what you're talking about. You must have done it similar to how I did.

Did you cut holes behind the motherboard yourself? That's what I had to do with my old case. My current one I didn't really bother for making it look super nice. I just grew lazier and lazier, but definitely use zip ties and such so that it doesn't look nasty, and so that airflow will not be greatly affected.

The CM 690 is such a great case, I didn't HAVE to cut anything behind the MB. There is already a hole at the top for the 8-pin CPU cable as well as the one to put the PSU's cables through on the bottom. There is one for the audio lead already, which is the one I used to route my fan control wires outside the case through the open PCI slot...and that let it be pretty much invisible.

I have cut two holes - one giant square behind the CPU socket so I never have to R&I the MB again for cooler change (became angry and did it in a fit of rage during the last forum wars) and I drilled out one wire-tie location that was built in, to make the USB and switch/LED headers closer to the bottom of the board.

New Water Loop - 56k Warning, Lots o' Photos

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