Project: A+ - Page 3

Cardboard box with DSL · #21 (**permalink**) March 30, 2008, 05:02 PM

After 2 failed attempts at a custom rad mound, I finally had an idea which worked!

What I ended up doing was cutting four 6" pieces of 3mm thick aluminum, drilling 2 holes at the top and bottom of each piece, and bending them to create brackets. I then put some rubber weatherstripping on the bottom of each piece (to protect the case), then I secured them onto the case with some bolts and washers, after that I cut some machine screws to the correct length and mounted the fans and radiator onto the brackets.

I'm thinking about painting the brackets black sometime, but I want to see what you guys/gals think first.

Pics:

Cardboard box with DSL · #22 (**permalink**) March 30, 2008, 07:57 PM

Now that the radiator has been mounted I can start moving things over and get a start on plumbing a few things in. But before I get down with my plumbers crack, I have a few questions...
Should I leave the rad mounts silver or paint them black to match?
Where should I put my drain port? (I'll use my reservoir as the filling point)
Do I need to flush my loop before full time use?

Thanks for all your help so far!

**sswilson** · #23 (**permalink**) March 30, 2008, 08:09 PM

Looks great!!!! That's some pretty hefty aluminum you've got going for the mounts. (I had something similar going, but only ever got the "temp" mounts made up..... never quite got to getting the nice permanent ones done).

As far as painting goes.... If it were me, I'd have some contrast colour going rather than having everything black.

Not sure how important the flush is, but you could at least try to flush out the rad (with distilled water) to ensure there aren't any particles left behind from the manufacturing process.

If your resevoir is removable, you can use that as a drain (assuming you have enough tubing attached to it to drop it lower than the rest of the loop).

Cardboard box with DSL · #24 (**permalink**) April 9, 2008, 10:19 PM

After leak testing successfully, I have my system up and running! My temps are around 10C lower then on my Tuniq Tower. Filling went well, I used a box to put my system on an angle and filled as much as possible, ran the pump for a second or two and repeated until it was full. It too a while for the bubbles to leave, but I'm pretty sure they are all out now.
I'll have some finished pictures up in a day or so...
Here are some pictures, enjoy!

Cptn Vortex · #25 (**permalink**) April 9, 2008, 11:28 PM

Did you have soap in there? looks sudsy. Good to see my old spare MicroRes is put into good use, looks nice!

Cardboard box with DSL · #26 (**permalink**) April 10, 2008, 06:53 PM

No soap, the water replacement gets really bubbly during the initial runs, after about 3 hours it all went away.

Cardboard box with DSL · #27 (**permalink**) April 13, 2008, 04:55 PM

I kind of missed the whole point of a worklog, to log my progress, so here is my rambling summary / overall log of my first experience with a case of this size and water cooling.

Day 1: With the help of many of the members here, I finally had all of the parts for my order nailed down. So I pulled out my credit card, went to NCIX, did some price matching, and gave my cc a swift kick in the shorts when I pressed the order button.

Day 2&3: Started thinking about the different ways to mount the radiator. And found that I didn't order fast enough and my reservoir was back ordered

Day 4: The morning was greeted by the sound of a Purolator truck bringing me my new toys. I spent the rest of the morning unpacking and checking everything to make sure that nothing was damaged in the shipping. I spend the rest of my afternoon drooling over the toys and had to stop to go out for Easter Dinner.

Day 6- Cptn. Vortex kindly sold me his Swiftek Micro Res! I then contacted NCIX for a refund and to take me off the back order list for the res.

Day 7ish - Rad mounting attempt #1 fail

Day 8ish - Rad mounting attempt #2 fail

Day 9- Received reservoir in the mail, Cptn. Cortex really knows how to pack! The res came in one box inside of another, both filled with ASL of bubble wrap and crumpled paper, I don't think the reservoir moved a millimeter during its entire trip!
That afternoon I went over to home depot and picked up a hacksaw and a bit for drilling metal, I was determined to make Rad mount attempt 3 work...

Day 10- Spent pretty well the entire day measuring, cutting drilling and bending pieces of aluminum for my rad mount. Heres a quick summary of my process: Found that I could drill through aluminum with a good bit and some liquid (WD40 in my case), I measured 4 4" long chunks of my aluminum bar, cut, drilled holes and used a vice and my brute strength (or lack there of) to bend a 1/2" lip on the top and bottom of each piece.
Once I got those finished I put a little rubber weather stripping on the bottoms of each of them (to protect the case) and used some machine screws to secure them to the top of the case. Once that was done I measured and cut some more machine screws to secure the rad to the top of the mounts.

Day 17- Between working 2 jobs and school resuming after spring break, I didn't have much time think about taking my rig apart and transplanting it into the new case while adding water cooling. But, thankfully, that evening I finally had the time to start transplanting my gear and plumbing the whole system. Everything went smoothly (although I think I'll re-mount my water block soon), hot water worked for most of the barbs, but when it came time to put the tube over the barbs on the pump I had to use boiling water and a fair bit of brawn to get the tubing on, but by 10:00pm that night I had everything plumbed.

Day 18- Went to work, picked up 3' long SATA cables so my drives could reach the SATA headers on my motherboard. Was too tired after work to risk filling and bleeding the loop.

Day 19- Finished cableing (I wish my 24pin, 4pin cpu and 6pin pci-e cables were longer). Once I get some more time and some newer parts, I'll probably dremel out some holes in the motherboard tray for real cable management.
Then it was time to start filling, things went fairly well, I propped my case up with a box to make sure that there was liquid on both sides of the pump. It never ran completely dry, but my spare PSU is a little wacky so it got really close a few times. After a few minutes all of the big air pockets were gone and only small bubbles remained, and I only had one spill from not watching carefully enough.

I spent the rest of the day leak testing and watching 3/4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 5

Day 20- The air felt heavy as I plugged everything in and was ready to do the first push of the button. Thankfully everything went well and nothing exploded or leaked. I checked my temps, they were at a respectable 35C with the CPU at 3.0Ghz, after a few restarts and a couple of hours, my idle temps came down to 32C and seem to keep getting lower as the AS5 cures.

Day 24- My temps are good, but my video card fan at full blast is starting to drive me nuts, I'm going to pull back its OC and throttle its fan like mad! I'll also be replacing the stock fans with my NF-P12s and adding one as an intake from the top to *hopefully* bring the interior temps down a little. Once I get this done, I'll post some pictures with everything running.
As of now the only things that I am missing are my new parts (I'll get them near the end of april with my B-day money) and a UV light to make my uv reactive dye show up...