Build log: Corsair 600T

[Sprucemoose]

Build log: Corsair 600T (lots of pics)

After many hours of reading, I am finally going to build my own water cooled computer running strictly internal radiators. My old computer runs with the AquaDuct 360 external system, and I've always wanted that thing off my desk.

Now, I've chosen the Corsair 600T midi-tower. In retrospect, I should possibly have chosen a larger case. I really hope my radiators/fans are up for this job (which is my biggest concern). If cooling fails, I'd have to redesign the loops using a different case.

Most of the hardware is still in shipment, but I've started configuring radiators and fans. I plan to build this over the next couple of weeks, and I'll update as I go along. Thanks to everyone who has answered my questions in other posts, a big help.

Cooling/control:
1x Swiftech MCP35X pump
1x Swiftech MCP35X reservoir
1x Swiftech 120.1 radiator
1x Swiftech 120.2 radiator
1x Phobya Xtreme 200.1 radiator
3x Noiseblocker Multiframe M12-S3 fans (max 1850rpm)
1x Phobya Silent G18 fan (max 700rpm)
1x Koolance INS-FM17N flow sensor
2x AquaComputer in-line water temperature sensors
1x Koolance CPU-370 waterblock
1x Koolance VID-NX590 waterblock (edit 09-20-11)
1x AquaComputer Aquaero 5 LT fan-controller
1x Aquaero bay mounting kit
Tubing: Feser UV-reactive White 3/8" ID 1/2"OD
Anti-kink: Primochill black
BitsPower silver compression fittings (incl. 1x 90deg and 1x 45deg rotary)
Thermal Compound: Koolance stock for CPU, Arctic Silver 5 for GPU.
Liquid: Deionized water
Liquid additive: PetraTech Nuke

Hardware:
Case: Corsair 600T White edition
CPU: Intel i7 2600K
GPU: Zotac GTX590 (edit 09-20-11)
RAM: Corsair Dominator 1600MHz 2x4GB
SSD: OCZ Vertex 2 80GB (from my old computer)
HDD: Some 400GB Samsung disk (from my old computer)
PSU: Corsair AX850
Mobo: ASUS P8Z68-V Pro
DVD: Some old Samsung WriteMaster DVD-RW (from my old computer)
Monitor: Samsung SyncMaster 2443BW 16:10

Etc:
Sleeved extension cord for fans, power etc.
Thread tap for 4M screws
Screws and rubber grommets
Phobya Noise Destructor pad for pump
2x Lamptron Spectral Bar UV lighting
1x AquaComputer RGB-led
1x LED reservoir plug
1x Akasa hard drive bay adapter for SSD
1x Frozen CPU rubber installation adapter for HDD

Allready bought parts which won't be put to use:
-AquaComputer "High-Flow" flow sensor (unbearable clicking sound despite RMAs)
-Flow sensor wire (yes, must be bought seperately)
-XSPC Dual Bay reservoir for MCP35X pump (direct contact between reservoir and case despite rubber decoupling creates too much vibration)
-Gentle Typhoon AP-15 (I know these are the "best", but the noise is too high pitched for my taste, the Noiseblocker fans had more of a low pitched noise. If cooling is more than adequate, I might change to the GTs as they can be adjusted to even lower voltage)
-PSU rubber silencer (the fit is so tight that I won't be able to use it)
-PowerColor HD6990 LCS (Dead on arrival, returned to store)
-Thermal compound: Nanoxia Heat Buster (Bad batch? Not able to spread it out, it just create rubber lumps).
-Tubing: Primochill White 3/8" ID (wife wanted UV lights, had to switch to Feser tubes).

Layout is as follows:
Pump is placed at the bottom of the case, and the water flows like this:
Res -> Pump -> Tempsensor#1 -> 200.1 -> Flowsensor -> 120.2 -> 120.1 -> Tempsensor#2 -> CPU -> GPU ->Res

You probably know the case, but here it is:




The 120.2 radiator at the top can be mounted as is, the metal grating is sandwiched between the rad underneath and the fans at the top:





To ensure that the top cover didn't touch any of the fans, I cut out some of the plastic ribs:




For the 200.1 radiator in front I had to drill four holes in the chassis. I placed the radiator so that it doesn't collide with the white plastic clips that hold the front of the case in place:





The 120.1 radiator in the back was a little tricky. Swiftech uses a 6-32 thread as standard on their radiators, and I had problems finding the correct length in Europe. I increased the thread size to a more convenient M4 size (pre-drilling with 3.3mm for anyone who is interested).

There are holes in the case for mounting a fan, but the rad was a little too wide to fit correctly. I had to drill some slots in the case to displace the radiator down and sideways towards the motherboard. Not very esthetic, but It'll do:





The gap between the fan and the top radiator is not much more than 2mm, but it'll keep the fan decoupled:




A close-up look at temp-sensor #2 (cold side of radiators):



The pump is sitting loosely on top of the Phobya Noise Destructor at the approximate position. I would have placed the 3.5" drive bays here, but as I switched from a bay reservoir to the cylindrical there won't be any more room. I'll end up using all four 5.25" bays (DVD-RW, Aquaero and 2 hard drives):




So this is how it all looks at the moment:




I'll update as soon as I get more stuff in, I hope this will be good. Be free to comment on setup, practical solutions etc. Any feedback appreciated.

 

[Conumdrum]

The bottom of the pump is going to get hot. You could cut a circle in the foam so the heat from the middle of the pump has somewhere to go.

That front rad with the front grate is going to have to pretty good fannage to pull air through, just have to see how it works I guess. Putting some strong fans on the exhaust rads would help pull air somewhat from the front rad. Depends how leaky your case it.

Thats all I see so far.

 

[Sprucemoose]

The bottom of the pump is going to get hot. You could cut a circle in the foam so the heat from the middle of the pump has somewhere to go.

Thanks for the heads up. I'll do some cutting.

That front rad with the front grate is going to have to pretty good fannage to pull air through, just have to see how it works I guess. Putting some strong fans on the exhaust rads would help pull air somewhat from the front rad. Depends how leaky your case it.

Don't know if it mean much, but the front fan is exhaust together with the back fan. The two top fans are intakes.

I do have some concerns about front fan power, but I guess I just have to try it out, checking my temps as I go. I could cut out the front metal grating on the case, however. That might help airflow restriction somewhat, but I don't know if the increase in airflow will be significant:

 

[Conumdrum]

Yea, just some concerns. You seem to have a good start, see how it goes.

I'd make the front intake, the other 3 exhaust. And possibly make the front push pull.

Give it a go, if temps with the case side on are good, then great, if poor, try it with the case side off.

Good luck.

 

[Sprucemoose]

I just went ahead and did it...No proper tools this time around, just some plate cutters. Again, the estethics don't rank high when it can be hidden away. Nothing that the front cover won't conceal




To ensure some aircooling to the pump, I cut a channel throught the foam block, and a little bigger square in the top layer. Now, the bottom of the pump will at least have some communication to the surrounding air:

 

[Conumdrum]

Oh ya, you got a fron't cover, good move. What about the top and back? It would really help flow cuz rads really restrict air.

I'm a dremel salesman,,,, LOL, not really.

 

[Sprucemoose]

Oh ya, you got a fron't cover, good move. What about the top and back? It would really help flow cuz rads really restrict air.

I'm a dremel salesman,,,, LOL, not really.

I do own a dremel myself, but I was eager to get the grating off without stripping all the rads/fans/covers from the case again (metal dust in the airflow could be bad for electronics ).

But if you believe it would be a significant improvement to airflow, I might just need to do that. At least the top grating will be hidden.

 

[Gritash]

dude, awesome

dude, awesome build know what you mean about Dremmel, but tbh it became my best friend for the 4 hours I spent cutting (mostly to sort HDD placement).

You have a few more sensors than I would have used but to each their own dont want to be rude but whats rough total cost of build for you?




http://s1082.photobucket.com/albums/j363/Gritash/WaterCooling/
(*haven't a good enough image of it finished as of yet)

 

[Sprucemoose]

The sensors, yes...Having both flow sensor and two watersensors are not really needed, I know...but I've always had an urge of seeing the objective numbers (the illusion of control)

Roughly, the system costs ~1200$ for cooling/control and ~2500$ for hardware. I stopped counting when I had to reorder stuff like new fans and reservoir. But roughly...I hope It'll be worth it when I put everything together. Don't tell my wife, though.

The computer is replacing my old computer with the Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 with an nVidia 8800GTX card, so It'll be a nice upgrade.

 

[Gritash]

Tubing and fittings

I wont say a word but lets hope she doesn't read this forum what size tubing did you use and also what fittings?

2 programs i found of great benefit for checking temps thru Windows GUI were speedfan 4.44 and cpuid hw monitor. Accuracy and what you can see varies according to mobo. speedfan measures the sysfan1/2 and cpufan headers on mobo along with the temps on HDDs. Comes in handy when they are sitting 2mm above the 240.1 radiator was the Aquacomp flow sensor made by Frotek by any chance? Best fans I found for CFM and dBa were Noctua, Enermax, Yate Loon.

What kind of differences are you getting vs stock?

 

[Gritash]

Compression Rings

Just noticed you were using compression fittings, excellent choice IMHO much more secure than barbs with clips. One thing to note about them, when attaching hoses take care not to pull it up thru the fitting. Also the right-angled compression fittings can feel tight but best to check with a snipe-nose pliers before filling system

 

[Sprucemoose]

I wont say a word but lets hope she doesn't read this forum what size tubing did you use and also what fittings?

I've bought 3/8"ID - 1/2" OD tubing together with Bitspower silver compression fittings.

2 programs i found of great benefit for checking temps thru Windows GUI were speedfan 4.44 and cpuid hw monitor. Accuracy and what you can see varies according to mobo. speedfan measures the sysfan1/2 and cpufan headers on mobo along with the temps on HDDs. Comes in handy when they are sitting 2mm above the 240.1 radiator

i'm actually going to use the Aquaero 5 fan controller (made by AquaComputer). This nice piece of hardware can be controlled through their custom "Aquasuite" software. It registeres several sensors, the nice thing about it is that you can set it to control fan/pump speed automatically according to different temperatures. Silent when working on the desktop, then it gradually cranks the speed up as temperatures rise when gaming. It should even be able to control the RGB led according to temps, calculate delta-T and heat dissipation in real-time. The software is still in beta, though.

was the Aquacomp flow sensor made by Frotek by any chance?

Haven't heard about Frotek, sorry...the sensor is the same as reviewed here. The sensor made an unbearable clicking sound as if the impeller was unbalanced. Aquacomputer was happy to send me a new impeller set, and even a new housing but the problem persisted. Don't know what caused the problem, but I knew that I couldn't keep listening to that clicking.

Best fans I found for CFM and dBa were Noctua, Enermax, Yate Loon.

I dived into the most comprhensive fan comparison I could find (here), so my first choice was the Gentle typhoon AP-15. But as noise is somewhat a subjective phenomenen I found the low frequency hum of the Noiseblocker Multiframe fans more soothing than the high-pitched noise from the GTs. If you look through the pages you'll find dozens of comparison charts.

What kind of differences are you getting vs stock?

If you're talking about the stock Corsair fans, I wouldn't know. Never tested them. The case comes prefitted with a 120mm fan exhaust in the back, and 2x 200mm(?) fans for the front and top. The first thing I did when I received the case was to dismantle it.

 

[Gritash]

BSPP fittings are very similar to G1/4" (afaik)? like the look of the cpu cooler, ...my precious.... Btw have you thought about your graphics card and weight issues? ie stress on pci-e socket..I wud always test at stock, just so I could have a bench mark

The Frȫtek sensor wud do your nut there is some wobble with it but to be fair the fans drum it back..it has a neat filter just before too so is handy

I've no room left in my case except for a 10mm deep channel where hdd cage screws are but I've managed to find a 9.2mm high SSD to squeeze in that only leaves me having to get new mobo to gain bandwidth from 6 Gb/s next.

 

[Sprucemoose]

Ok, so I stripped down the whole case and took out the Dremel. I started cutting out the top and back grill, and I also touched up the front. I tried to grind down the pointy ends, but the risk of cutting my fingers are still very much present.

A couple of minutes later including a good going over with a vacuum cleaner the thing looks like this:





The Noiseblocker fans come with a thin rubber decoupling frame/shroud, but I have to skip this on the top fans. Parts of the rubber frame will hang loosely in the air, probably resonnating when the fans run. Well, off to assemble the whole thing again.

One problem I ran into trying to make the top fans exhaust was that the fans would make a high-pitched noise in pull configuration. I guess this is due to the negative pressure between the radiator and the fan. Now that I have the gratings off (less airflow restriction), I'll give it another try.

 

[Gritash]

Decoupling

For rubber decoupling why not try thin U or V tubing from a hardware store?
The Dremmel is an awesome little tool, my build simple wouldn't have been possible without one!.

 

[Sprucemoose]

Ok, so I got my parts today. Slowly putting it all together.

Here, the motherboard, PSU, CPU, GPU and RAM:




Started out with the motherboard. I had to prefit the 8-pin CPU 12V cable (sleeved extension) and unscrew the back fan to get the cable through the hole in the back plate. The cable wasn't very flexible, but I managed. The black cable connector sits tightly against the radiator, but it doesn't seem to apply too much pressure. I also managed to run the cable from the water temp-sensor at the back underneath the motherboard.





Next came CPU mounting, I had bought some Nonoxia Heat Buster thermal paste, but when it came out of the syringe it was just like rubber. It was not the kind of concistency that is possible to spread out. I could actually roll it around with my fingers creating small rubber balls from it. I don't have any experience working with this specific paste, but it didn't feel right at all. Trying to apply it across the CPU, the results where some small thermal sausages. I did have a spare, but it was the same as the first one. I figured that it was a bad batch, and I didn't dare use it. In lack of anything else, I had to go with the Koolance paste that came with the water block.

Mounting the Koolance CPU water block was no real biggy, but figuring out how much tension to put on the thumbscrews was a little hard. The manual only says "Do not overtighten", but doesn't state much else. I ended up tightening so that the top of the thumbscrews aligned with the threaded pin in the middle. That way I at least know that all four corners apply the same force.





PSU was installed with air intake at the bottom, and the exhaust in the back. I guess that the need for cooling will be less if it'll be able to draw cool outside air. If the airflow inside the case is bad, I could always swap direction.




Graphic card installation...Man, this is a huge card. It measures 30,5cm (if I recall correctly), and it's pretty heavy too. Looks like a solid build. I got it 20% off regular price as it had been returned by a customer allready. The reason for return was that the mounting bracket was a bit bent, but the card hasn't been used. It turned out to be a very tight fit, but with a little pressure the card was secured. $220 saved! I'm still a bit suspicious about the electrical noise this card is supposed to create during load, though...I'll keep the box just in case I decide to return it.





This is how far it sticks out into the case:




The back-plate of the card is really close to the water in/out threads. Trying to insert a Bitspower compression fitting directly at this side results in it colliding with the back plate. Luckily, the card came with some threaded extensions:




This is how it looks after today's work. I'll try to get some work done tomorrow, next up will probably be installing the pump and tubing.

 

[Conumdrum]

Umm, did you test the parts with normal air cooling before putting them under water?

 

[Sprucemoose]

I didn't, no...probably should have to check if they're good, right? The GFX-card, however, is stock fitted with the water-block, and I can't start taking that apart.

On the other side, the CPU-cooler is installed now, so I don't know if redoing it to check components will serve much purpose right now...will remember for next time.

Hopefully everything will work ok (fingers crossed).

 

[DR DEUCE]

Looking good. more pics please lol.

 

[Sprucemoose]

Looking good. more pics please lol.

You want more pictures, you say? Here comes:

I chose the Feser UV-reactive tube, even though the Primochill was whiter. The Feser had a kind of blue tint to it, even in regular lighting. But wife wanted the "blue light" in the computer (believe it or not).

I had to use some anti-kink coils on the tubes leading to and from the CPU block, but I don't see any obvious kinks elsewhere.

I chose to use the Koolance flow-meter hooking it up between the 200mm and 240mm radiator.

I've yet to fasten the pump to the chassis, though. I guess being able to rotate/move the reservoir while tipping the case when bleeding, the job will be a bit easier. I chose to use two screws to hold the pump to the upper rubber layer instead of gluing it. The screw heads are hidden between the upper and middle layer. I also ended up rotating the reservoir so that inlet port and LED-plug is against the back plate. This (I guess) will be a better solution for the spread of light in the reservoir (viewing angle). I had to use a 90 degree fitting for this, all other fittings are straight.








This picture pretty much shows why this case is a dream come true, all cables out of sight: