Project - *** Blackened *** (56k BW)

[Phrenetical]

Welcome to my first Water cooling project.

Day 1


Im taking my old case, and hardware in my sig, and building my first WC'ed system. In preperation for Conroe and new hardware later in the year.

CPU: 3.2e DO 478
Ram: OCZ Gold 3700 EL
MB: Abit IC7-G Modded and sinked...
VGA: x850 xt pe
HDD: 160gb sata
PSU: 520w OCZ powerstream
Cooling: Swiftech apex ultra kit ++ a heap of fans
Case: 50$ piece of crap from local pc shop, but it is now not so recognisable as anything but unique.


So in this mod im

A. Spray painting it black (Not the top or side windows)
B. Modding the top perspex to hold the radiator and 3 120mm fans.
C. Cutting out sections of the MB plate to allow for alot of cable hiding behind the MB
D. Making mesh grills to cover most of the fans.
E. Masking the Cd-rom and HDD so you wont really be able to see them.
F. Making mesh grill for 5.25' bays
G. Trying to sleeve each cable that will be visible in case not behind MB plate.
H. Getting my water cooling in and seeing if 4Ghz is possible.


Whati want from this mod, is basically experience, in modding and water cooling. Plus a sweet looking rig.

So today i started and hear are the first images.

My bedroom, or should i say assembly room




My Working area, laundry




Spray painted case outside, not bad for first time with the can




Case




Radiator mounted, with two long screws at the back, and attached to 120mm fan at top, it high detail so you can see what iv done.



Bassicaly, i need extra height to be able to properly mount the radiator on top and make sure the radiator barbs didnt sit inside the case, so between the 120mm fan and rad, are 4 gold MB mounting screws, gives me the perfect height.

So the radiator is supported pretty well by the 120 on the perspex, and the two screws supporting it at the back, take most of the weight.

I have about 15 pics so bare with me as i post em up.

^_^

 

[Phrenetical]

Ok, second post, here are a bunch of shots of quick little things to make the case a bit easier to work with.

Here is some sleeving for the cut outs on the MB plate, makes it easier to slide in cables.




Hole in top of case for filling RES




This is a simple little plug thing i bult out of a rubber washer a nut and a screw ^_^




Masking fan cables, this stuff is just coaxial cable shielding, i sliced it off a huge coax and slit it down one side, beats buying the pre-cut expensive stuff.





Rad with masked cables.




more pics to come

 

[Phrenetical]

Spray painted mesh panel for the front.




Spray painted grills for front fans to cool pump, means they will trap most of the dust too, so the pump wont get pwned by dust.




Masked CD-rom




The RES mount




The fill port with my homemade ghetto macca's straw filler.




more to come

 

[Phrenetical]

Good bye air cooling, my hyper 6 bites the dust.




OMG WHERE IS THE HARD-DRIVE




HEHEHEH There it is,, hidden is good ^_^




Ok thats where im up to


I couldn't go any further because i screwed the plug to the Res in to far and broke part of the thread on the inlet hole, so i screwed it in again and a second time it slipped and broker more thread, so i carefully did it a third time, and then got worried that it would leak.

So i sealed botht he inlet and outlet plugs to the res with a clear setting plastics glue, that will illeminate any leakage.'

but that ment i couldnt go any further tnight, and have to wait till it fully dries, many more pics to come tomoz, and hopefully have my first WC'd rig up and running


Wish me luck ^_^

 

[Phrenetical]

OMG woootzy 4th star

 

[Albaholic]

nice, I like the coax idea. Too bad I dont have tons of coax laying around anymore

 

[Phrenetical]

and you call yourself a nerd,,,,,,, shame on you ^_^

 

[Phrenetical]

Day 2!

Oh man, trying to install water cooling with a hangover,,,, NOT GOOD>

I hooked up the pump inlet outlet backwards but didnt notice this till i filled up the system, or at least tried too, :<

So bleed system and hooked it up properly, which turned out good cause the first lot of fluid was rather foamy even though i rinsed everything throughly and soaked the res in vinegar overnight and flushed it for ages. Oh well.

But in the end and after a fair few panadol, i have my first Loop running.


This is me hooking the pump up wrong, stupid mistake from a newby




This is the res




That the mesh modded to fit around res as well, it basically sits in there perfect, no glue or anything, so i can pull it out and clean it occasioanlly. it helps with the dust.




After hooking all the **** up, thats the mess i made in the loungeroom after having to bleed the system, not to mention i overfilled the RES at one point, lukiyl i didnt have any hardware in the box.




And this is my Loop set p correctly, no foamy residue, and no leaks after about 2 hrs of running, im gonna leave it on overnight, it should be fine.





more pics to come

 

[Phrenetical]

oh and i have a bone to pick with SWIFTECH, the Fans 3pin to 4pin conveter cables are not done correctly, the pass through plug is actually hooked up backwards, so both 120's atm are taking up one PSU molex each, not cool.

Will have to try and fix that tommorrow

Anyway heres a few more piccies.


More of the loop




Filled res




inside

 

[Phrenetical]

Anyway, if i hadnt of drank so much last night i prob would have my rig up and running tonight, but cbf doing it at 2am.

So tommorrow if no leaks tonight the hardware is going int the box and i will see if 4ghz is possible, im pretty sure its my ram though thats the issue, the gold EL isn't known for having mush headroom.

So what else, oh you all probably saw the scratches on the bottom and side of the case, thats all mostly from the pump, it scratched up the spray job good.

But i will just use a big *** black texta to colour in the scratches and you won't be able to see it..


Ok thats me done for the night, be back early tomoz.

^_^

 

[Phrenetical]

Day 3

Welcome back.

Well im all done, water cooling is working perfect, leak tested for 12+ hrs, no issues.

Though the hoses took up room where my side fans used to be on the window, so i had to mount them on the outside of the perspex instead of on the inside. Looks nice i reckon anyway.

No real issues while putting everything in, the swiftech mounts for the CPU are awesome, it stops letting you screw the block down at a certain point, so you don't need to worry about to much pressure on cpu.


Ok im gonna post up the final pickz.


Picture of finished case and installed hardware, fans on side, front door closed.






Front door open





Peeking inside, notice the lack of cabling, you should see behind MB, WOW...




Lights off




Lights on

 

[Phrenetical]

More piccies.

Top lights off




Lights off whole case




closer




Behind front panel mesh




More of the top

 

[Phrenetical]

Final images.


The final case with open door





The final case closed door




In windows

 

[Phrenetical]

And thats that, or almost, i still have to see if it will do 4ghz now.

But on a good note, the temps move between 37 idle - 50 Max load in dual primes, ie the picture above.

But the strange thing is, my hyper 6 used to go between 48 idle and like 60 load, but since its an abit board, i ncant trust those temps cause the heatsink never got hot.

The case inside is cool as, like the exhaust fans at the back blow out no warm air.

So i reckon temps are more like 30 idle - 40 Load which is awesome. ^_^


Yup, thats it folks, apart from a few scratches to the paint, and me hooking the pump up backwards this all went pretty smooth for my first water cooling rig.

thanks to everyone who gave me advice about going to water from extreme air.

thanks ^_^

 

[hainer36]

horns up to the name
horns up to the music collection (although load and reload....dunno about those)
and double horns up to using a 3.2E! i loved mine til the day i got rid of it. looks good

 

[Phrenetical]

ahahha cheers brother

and yes load reload, anything after Masters' is a totally different band for me, its the only way i can justify it

And yeah was definently going for an Metal/Industrial look to the case, i have a done a bit more work to it in that regard also, so check back here tommorrow cause i will post a couple more pics.

And lol go the 3.2e's still stable as a rock after 1.5 yrs at 3.8, tommorrow i see if it can do 4ghz.

Ahhh a day off work, thank the metal gods for annual leave.

 

[SolidxSnake]

very nice, looks incredibly clean. Are you running UV tubes?

As said previously, nice playlist.

 

[Phrenetical]

nope they are just standard hoses that came with kit, and your typical blue led fans and one 12' blue cathode.

The green dye/anti algae stuff that came with kit is in about a 7% mixture to distilled water, they recomended 5% but i was a bit worried about growth

I think the first fill where the liquid got a bit foamy managed to really clean it out, then when i did the second fill with the what was left of the liquid it was as clean as it could possibly get.

It took me about 2 hrs to clean all the dust out of my case and fans (about 9 months of accumulated crap), i really need to get my pc off the floor.

if it wasn't for those scratches to the bottom of the case i'd be happy ^_^

 

[SolidxSnake]

nope they are just standard hoses that came with kit, and your typical blue led fans and one 12' blue cathode.

The green dye/anti algae stuff that came with kit is in about a 7% mixture to distilled water, they recomended 5% but i was a bit worried about growth

I think the first fill where the liquid got a bit foamy managed to really clean it out, then when i did the second fill with the what was left of the liquid it was as clean as it could possibly get.

It took me about 2 hrs to clean all the dust out of my case and fans (about 9 months of accumulated crap), i really need to get my pc off the floor.

if it wasn't for those scratches to the bottom of the case i'd be happy ^_^

Ah sorry, I meant, do you have any UV cathodes in there? I thought your fan was a blue cathode for a second in a pic and asked that out of thought you could read my mind.

No kidding about the dust... my fans are all black from dust (LMAO), and I'm just too lazy to clean em all... almost no dust accumulates in my case, just the fans.

 

[Phrenetical]

yeah the case was almost free of dust apart from the fans, but like i said i used to have about 13 of them in my case, and all of em were caked with it.

hence why i went heavy on the mesh, it quitens fans and collects a lot of dust.

i am working on the mind reading nah just standard blue cold cathode, no UV stuff.

though i was impressed about the blue hose wrapping stuff that came in the kit, form what iv seen its usually white, i think the blue is much nicer. and it works with the blue light cathode and fans.