[Water Cooling Log] Project Noob!

Discussion in 'Die-hard Overclocking & Case Modifications' started by The Laughing Ma, Mar 15, 2012.

  1. The Laughing Ma

    The Laughing Ma Ancient Guru

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    Project Noob! Corsair 540 Carbide update.

    Project Noob

    I started this project a round two and a bit weeks ago, this is a complete write up of my general thoughts and observations during the project. It is not intended as a guide but if it does provide any help for future water cooling noobs then, yeah great!

    Objectives

    - To give my rig a much needed spring overhaul, no new core system hardware.
    - To water cool my I5 Maxmus 3 rig and see just how far I can OC this thing.
    - To dip my toe in to the world of water cooling (pun intended).

    I've done quite a few mods with my system, and have tried my hand at a few different projects over the years but the one thing I have never tried my hand at is water cooling. Like many other folk the concept of expensive electronics and water just seemed like a recipe for disaster. However the time had come to try my hand at a simple water cooling set up while replacing my current lighting set up, which hasn't been working since I shorted my old mobo with an experimental Zalman fan controller that I had removed from it's protective plastic casing (long story and I can't remember quite what I was trying to achieve.) Also the case needed a good spring clean as it was full of dust.

    So I am a total noob to water cooling, I mean a total noob ask me what a G1/4 fitting was and I would have said 'ummm a rapper?' It also turns out that my Silverstone Fortress FT01 is less than an ideal case for water cooling, not much in the way of room apparently.

    So noobish: Check
    Not an ideal case: Check
    Internet full of advice: Check

    I decided that I would go with a simple CPU cooling loop as the Zalman cooler was looking tired and had more dust than the inside of a Dyson and while an effective cooler it was kinda loud. So my starting point was to find out what the best course of action for my little project was, much reading, searching, idea forming and..... hell 3 hours on the internet and I had reached the following conclusion. I could take the

    Easy Option

    Clean case, strip the old lighting out, stick some new better fitting stuff in and install some nice cable tidy equipment and a pre built water CPU cooler like the Corsair H series.

    I dismissed this as I didn't think I would like the look of the Corsair H coolers and read mixed review on how effective and how loud they were and I wouldn't really learn much about water cooling set ups since it would all be pre built for me.

    Not as Easy Option

    Clean case, strip old lighting out, stick some new... well you get the picture, and install an off the shelf pre selected water cooling kit like the EK kits.

    This seemed like a better option but got dismissed because it would limit me to the bits that came in the kit, the res and rad would not fit in the case very well and the tubing and fittings would be stock and not end up looking like I wanted.

    The Correct way

    Clean case, yadadada etc, select the entire water cooling system, all the bits and build it myself.

    So there I was, armed with three hours of internet based water cooling knowledge, so the logical choice was to do the whole thing myself. Choose the parts, hope they fitted, worked and at least looked good once done. Let's go for this option then!

    Research is boring so I won't tell you about here but I read and read and read some more and came up with a list of bits that seemed to like they would do the job.

    - EK Supreme CPU Block
    - Laing D5 Pump
    - XPS Res Top for D5
    - Primochill UV Red Tube 7/12
    - XPS 120 Rad

    So I ordered the bits up and waited for them to arrive.

    [​IMG]


    So the bits arrive and the learning and hence the fun begins. This mostly involved unpacking bits and then seeing how they fit together, in some case I even read instructions.

    At this stage I had realised that I still need some other things so I was currently just experimenting to see how bits went together and how it would all look. I had concluded that I would need some different anti kink coils, the ones I order were too small. it seems that water cooling imperial and metric figures get thrown about at will so while the tube is labelled as 7/12 the anti kink is labelled as 11mmOD and yes when I ordered it I was having a stupid moment with my maths.

    So here's what I ended up with

    Pump and Res bolted together with compression fitting fitted.

    [​IMG]

    Me admiring the shiny shiny EK water block before fitting the compression fittings.

    [​IMG][​IMG]

    Messing about with the Rad, mount and fittings.

    I had thrown around the idea of fitting the Rad at the back of the case replacing the exhaust fan and then having a bay mounted res with an inbuilt pump. I however decided to go for a separate pump with res top and then mount the the rad inside the four empty 5inch drive bays.

    This meant I would have to order some rad mounts as well as a 5' drive fan cooler. Whilst their were a few different bay mounts out there, no one seemed to have any of them in stock so ended up coming up with my own.

    The solution, take one of the 5' bay covers from my rig screw it on to the rad's fan mounts using a couple of hard drive screws and there you go a bodged 5' bay radiator mounting kit. All i needed was some sticky back plastic and I could have auditioned for Blue Peter.

    [​IMG][​IMG]

    With the change in Rad mounting my original choice of a dual bay Aerocool touch screen fan controller became workable so my next order was for a few strip LEDs in red and a Zalman 6 channel fan controller as well as a tube cutter and a 5' bay fan mount.

    Pre installation

    The objective here was to clear down any old bits that the case no longer needed, give it a much needed dust, and route the cables to give clear access for mounting the various bits as well as do a quick pre set up of the water cooling bits I already had.

    The case shown is stripped, cleaned and had the bay readied for trial mounting of the Rad.

    [​IMG]

    This shows the case tidied up with most of the core cables in place and rerouted it also allowed me a chance to test fit the pump, res and and rad in their desired locations.

    [​IMG][​IMG]

    The Rad required that the case have a little bit of modding done to it, nothing too extreme just the bending and removal of the drive guide rails inside the bay.

    This was intended as nothing more than a test run just to get a rough idea of the tube lengths and to see if the stuff would fit. What I concluded was that the tube connecting rad to res was too long and that the length of tube cut for the pump to water block would probably be too small. I originally order
    1M of tubing which had I cut it correctly would just about have done the entire loop but I had anticipated issues so I ordered an extra 1M when I ordered my fan controllers, new CORRECT size anti kink coils, 5inch bay fan cooler and a cheap PSU for bleeding, filling and leak testing the loop.

    Still waiting

    Finally some more stuff arrived allowing me to progress. First things first the Zalman fan controller. Smaller, slimmer and less complex than the Aerocool unit I chose at first and whilst I was bummed that I wouldn't be able to have the touch screen temp monitoring fancyness of the Aerocool fan controller going for the aesthetic look of hiding the rad in the 5inch bays meant that the Aerocool would have just simply blocked the airflow to much. Oh well the Zalman fan controller is still quite a looker and allows me to control 6 fans rather than just 4.

    [​IMG][​IMG]

    With my fan controller arrived my final section of the loop, the extra length of pipe I needed. So without haste, the pipe was jammed in the case, an approximate size with some extra to spare (too long being better than too short as I had learned.) I finally fit the whole lot together to create the complete loop.

    [​IMG]

    Time to fill this bad boy and test, simple straightforward battery top up water is the cooling fluid of choice for my loop having heard various horror stories ranging from dyed fluids bunging up cooling blocks right through to paying the higher price for specialist fluids giving little to no added effect over simple plain battery top up water.

    So hooked up the cheap PSU to the pump, added a couple of the light mods I had order for the case, these would confirm that the PSU was on and providing power. Filled the res to about 3/4 full and with a little trepidation flicked the switch. A couple of seconds and nothing, then the pump jumps in to life and started pushing th fluid out of the res.

    A quick switch off, another top up and flicked the switch again, doing process until the loop looked to be full of water. My initial thoughts were, gee this is kinda noisy, I used to own fish and the noise was what you got when the pump used to suck air through it to aerate the water. A closer inspection showed that the system had a huge amount of really small bubbles in it and it was these that were making the noise.

    Anyway, I guess this was the bit were you had to bleed the system, so firstly I gave each of the connections a good check to make sure their were no obvious leaks. Flipped the switch, tilted the pump and res at a 45degree angle and started shaking and moving various bits and pieces around trying to get rid of the bubbles. Initial investigation showed tilting the rad on it's side seemed resulted in a nice GULG noise and an improvement to the water coming out and returning to the res, it had less bubbles in it and the pump ran quieter.

    A good shake up, down whilst tilting the rad forward and back eventually released the air lock so all that was left was the few small air bubbles in the loop. A few good squeezes on the pipes around the loop seemed to help here and after a bout ten minutes or so the loop started to run silently. Time to start the leak test, very easy just leave it running for a couple of hours.

    [​IMG]

    Build time.

    Today's the day, I have a day off work, the loop itself is built and has been tested for leaks all I am waiting for is one last item, the Lian Li 5inch bay intake fan but I decided that the loop could be installed and used and the drive bay covers left off until that arrives. So I am disconnect the rig and by chance the postman turns up and guess what he has, yup the last part of my build.

    Where to start?

    As with most projects their seems to be so much to do and the questions is how can it all be done as easily and as risk free as possible.

    The list I had and the rough order was

    - Remove the motherboard, yeah I found this out during my initial tidy up, my case doesn't have access to the back of the motherboard so to get my old Zalman air cooler off needed the removal of the motherboard.
    - Install the water block mounts and refit motherboard
    - Install loop, radiator, pump and then water block
    - Leak test inside the case and fitted
    - Fit fan controller and bay intake fan and grills
    - Install, route, tidy and hide cables and god there are a lot of cables.
    - Turn on, pray!

    Here's what I started with, still a bit dusty but take a good look cause it's gonna be a bit different once it's all finished.


    [​IMG]

    Remove the motherboard.

    So I started by taking the GPU and sound card out and disconnecting the various fans, plugs and other bits and pieces. It's funny how whilst you are doing this you think of the stuff that you may have missed. The first thought was, hmm I've disconnected those Sata cables before and when I plugged them back in the computer really did not like the fact that I hadn't plugged them back in in exactly the same order they were before! Hmm they all look the same how the hell will I remember which one is which? Simple answer really stick a different coloured cable tie round each one and take a picture

    [​IMG]

    Image limit reached so continued in the next post.
     
    Last edited: Aug 15, 2013
  2. The Laughing Ma

    The Laughing Ma Ancient Guru

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    So mad thought one solved. Mad thought two hits as I am trying to weedle the old Zalman cooler connector out from where it was tightly routed. Hmmm do I require a jumper to fool my mobo in to thinking the CPU is connected, can I plug the fan connector that is attached to the pump in to it and will it work? The Zalman connector has 4 pins everything else has 3 some with 3 cables some with 2 and the pump having only 1.... I need to check the internet for an answer.

    Hmmm if only my computer wasn't half disassembled. I grab my smart phone and go looking, half an hour later I have an answer, yes, no and you can trick it by plugging a 3 pin fan in.... clear answer then, thanl you internet.

    Let's push on if all else fails I'll boot the rig and use the old CPU fan until
    I can order a dedicated jumper to do the job.

    So a wee while later and the old very dusty Zalman fan is out and the mother board is clear of the case.

    [​IMG][​IMG]

    Board out, give the inside of the case a dust, remove the fans and clean, reroute and tidy the cables all fun very very fun....

    Install the water block mounts and reinstall motherboard.

    Not really much to it, the CPU got a nice cleaning with some TIM removing solution before going ahead. The only real issue was as with all CPU coolers, lots of different washers, lots of screws and lots of bits that don't necessarily fit your set up CPU, Motherboard or both. I actually had to read the instructions!

    Refitting the board was dead easy and the labelling of the Sata cables worked a treat right up until one of the cable ties shifted during pluggin in of the Sata cable and got wedged between the case and the back of the cable. Requiring the motherboard to be lifted up and jiggled (technical term there) before I could free it. Other than that it all went back in nicely.

    [​IMG]

    Install the Loop

    Now if it was all gonna go tits up this would be it; the rad mount was a bodge job made from screwing a bay cover to the radiator fan, the Lian Li bay intake fan was a little wide so required some serious encouragement, rubber mallet encouragement, to fit in the bay and testing the water loop earlier using the Zalman fan controller had turned up a dodgy electrical connection somewhere that despite much jiggling (there's that technical term again) had not shown me were the issue lay. Oh and wires, lots and lots of wires.

    I started mounting the Rad, with no ATX cable, in fact no real cables at all lying around there was tons of room to guide the rad and the rest of the loop roughly in to place. It all went in very nicely, more or less, test fitting earlier saved a lot of time as the bay was prepared and I knew roughly where the mounting screws would fit, however a few issue arose;

    a). The mounting screws were a proper bastard catching the threads and
    b). I screwed the Radiator in at an angle so it ended up sitting lop sided.

    Now here's the thing when I first came up with this Rad mounting system I intended for it to act as an exhaust, then the Lian Li intake fan arrived key word here being 'intake'. The thing is the Lian Li intake could be adapted to make a really nice rad mount as well.

    Unfortunately this proved unworkable as the Rad is large at the top and a lot larger at the bottom where the compression fittings are. Using the Lian Li intake as a rad bracket, no matter which way I mounted the Rad, would have lead to the Rad interfering with the fan controller if mounted right side up or interfering with the DVD drive if mounted upside down. So I had tostick to my original bodged rad mounting system but remove and remount the fan from exhaust to intake. All in all it worked very nicely.

    [​IMG]

    The pump went in without issue, outlet pointing towards the case window and then a wee glob of Artic Silver 5 and some careful spreading and the water block was ready to go on. At this stage I made a very stupid mistake, but I'll come to that a bit later on.

    Once the block was on it turned out the orientation of the pump meant the outlet pipe would have to be heavily kinked to get the case cover back on, so the pump had to be turned 90degree.

    Boy was that a tough job the velcro on the double sided stick pad that came with the pump mounting kit has to be the toughest stuff I have ever encountered, you could use it to stick aircraft wings on with. Anyway after much struggle and with the pump realigned the loop was in, so time to do a bit of in case leak testing. The pump and rad fittings could leak without issue but the CPU water block needed to have some tissue wrapped round them, just in case.

    [​IMG][​IMG]

    Now you may have noticed that I have skipped some stages from my planned work through list, well actually I just rail roaded quite a few of them together, while strategically missing some other ones, so now the loop was in and running on the cheap test PSU it was time to move on to

    Install, route, tidy and hide cables and god there are a lot of cables.

    I hate cables, I encounter them at work during the installs I do there and their is a universal law about them, no matter how tidy you try to make them you always end up with what looks like a total mess and on the rare occasion you do get something that looks half decent something won't work so you'll have to untidy them to find out what's wrong and by the time you find the issue you couldn't care less if you were using half dead rodent entrails to stick them back together and get rid of them.

    Did I mention I hate routing and tidying cables? Well the objective, was two fold here.

    1). Someone looking in through the window only sees what I want them to see, nice and tidy no cables that aren't absolutely needed.
    2). The space between the back of the cases motherboard mount and the case cover is very small, you can't just shove any old cables in there because you will NEVER get the case cover back on, believe me I have tried.

    Anyway much routing, some swearing... well a lot of swearing, mostly at the shocking Corsair 12V 4 pin connectors and the intake fan fitting being a bit more than snug, break open the rubber mallet and whack it home to give the following.


    [​IMG][​IMG][​IMG]

    Yeah it looks untidy, but all the cables are flat they are all hidden from anyone viewing through the front and when it came to put the case cover on it went on first time without issue, in every way it was a success very much unlike most cable tidying projects.

    The fan controller cables I decided to route out the side of the drive bay rather than routing them over or under the Radiator and they created a nice little storage web that I could use to hide the spare Audio input and fire wire input cable, underneath and away from the radiator intake fan. (I would have removed these cables if I could have found a way.)

    Turn on, Pray!

    So the loops in, the cables are back in and nice and tidy, the loop has been leak tested and it didn't leak, the lights and niceties are in so what else is left... oh yeah re connect the mouse, keyboard the monitor and press that button on the front.

    So the systems booting, it's past the post screen, it's past the HD check stage, I guess labelling those Sata cables worked a treat and now it's telling me the CPU cooler ain't working.

    So to answer the question I had had several hours earlier, yeah you need something to fool the CPU fan header cause just plugging a fan in don't work. I can however press F1 to skip this, which doesn't work because for reasons that only Microsoft can explain the Keyboard I have doesn't turn on until it boots in to Windows.

    Find an old keyboard plug it in, reboot, dick around in the Bios for a few minutes to tell the system to ignore the CPU fan header reading and reboot.

    Yeah Windows is finally booting, in to Windows and check the CPU temps with the air cooler it was around 26 - 30C idle over the four cores. Ummmm these are reading 48C - 50C across the four cores... something isn't right.

    Is the cooler crap, is the pump working, maybe the TIM isn't applied right then it hit me, god I am an idiot. Shut down, a few minutes to disconnect and remove the water block and here's that big stupid mistake I mentioned earlier.

    [​IMG]

    Yeah, not sure what got me the most with that one. The big sticker saying in big bold letters to REMOVE BEFORE USE, the fact that when I was doing the pre assemble I told my self to remember to remove it, right before I got distracted and had to go out for an hour or so. So anyway, reapply the Artic 5 replaced the water block and rebooted.

    That's more like it, whilst the idle temp does not seem to be much lower than it was on air cooling, it still sits around the 25 - 29C mark across the four cores at Idle, the temps under load seem to be much better, upwards of about 10C better but the real bonus and the reason for this is

    A). The rig looks so much better, much much better than it did before, yeah it's an opinion but I like it
    b). Quiet, with the fans turned down it is silent, not that it is very loud with them turned right up

    A quick video run through of the water rig

    (http://youtu.be/RAQ7OL22lsY)

    [​IMG][​IMG][​IMG][​IMG][​IMG]

    Conclusions.

    Well the whole concept of water cooling was a bit scary, like I said at the start I had never done water cooling and had never really ever considered it but, now I've done a simple loop taken the correct route by choosing and building it myself rather than buying a pre made or pre selected kit I gotta say I am happy with the way it looks and the fact it is quiet oh and it does cool the CPU very nicely.

    The video run through makes it seem louder than it really is but it really is a hell of a lot quieter than the old air cooled set up. So anyway yeah rambling a bit, conclusions.

    - Water cooling is complex and yet simple, it all looks daunting but like building a PC it all goes together quite nicely provided you get the right bits. The hard bit is the way that websites list parts and happily change from imperial to metric at will. Anyway no biggy don't be a spud and remember 25mm per inch and you should be able to get the bits you need and better yet they will fit, however

    - Be prepared to order one or two bits that don't work that don't fit quite right, I had this with the original knuckle joint I ordered for the top of my res and the anti kink coils but for the most part my research paid off.

    - Research is key

    The internet is full of guides as well as folk who have done the stuff you may be thinking of. I found

    http://www.clunk.org.uk/forums/water-cooling/33772-water-cooling-guide-beginners-2.html I wouldn't say the guide was invaluable, it missed out things like the CPU jumper but I still found it to be very helpful.

    The overall layout I went with came from this project post by a someone called rjkoneill over at the OC UK forums http://forums.********************/showthread.php?t=17952928. Availability of parts meant I had to be a bit creative with some of my set up but the layout was taken from his project so kudos to him for that.

    - Finally, less speed more haste, I would like to think for the most part I apply these rules to my rig building but as you saw I still ended up sticking my water block on with the factory 'Please remove before use sticker on it'. So yeah take your time and do things right the first time.

    Future projects

    - Right now the pump is emitting a slight buzz, it seems it isn't sitting quite right on the case floor it isn't loud enough to be annoying so doing something right here and right now isn't really a priority but some sort of rubber mounting system may be in the future.

    - Despite the anti kink coil size fiasco I am wondering weather or not to fit them, I don't need them as the tube seems fine but I am toying with the idea from an aesthetic point of view.

    - Extending the loop, right here and right now the non reference design of my GPU (Gigabyte 560Ti Superclocked) means that I would have to go with a generic GPU block combined with passive fin coolers for the RAM. The current Gigabyte cooler is really quiet and effective and installing a second or extended loop would require a larger rad and to get that inside the rig would require cutting lumps out of the 5inch drive bays. So maybe but not in the near future.

    If you read this far then thanks, any thoughts questions, pic requests hey I may even dance if asked nicely.
     
  3. LetterKilled

    LetterKilled Guest

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    NICE!!!! does the hose kinda get in the way of your video card?
     
  4. The Laughing Ma

    The Laughing Ma Ancient Guru

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    Nope it just kinda curls very nicely around it, there's actually loads of room between the hose and the GPU.
     

  5. wlw_wl

    wlw_wl Master Guru

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    Thanks for so many details!

    As for your keyboard not working until past the POST, you need to enable legacy devices support for the USB, in the BIOS.
     
  6. The Laughing Ma

    The Laughing Ma Ancient Guru

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    Ahhhhh but how do I do that if my keyboard won't work until I get in to Windows? ;)

    Just kidding, thanks for the info dude.

    Small update, no new images cause nothing much has changed.

    - Wired in a switch that allows me to turn the LEDs on the case and the LEDs on the Res off. Yeah it looks great but when you're kicking back watching films it's nice to be able to turn them off.

    Had to strip some of the wires and reconnect and used an old switch from one of the old CRL lights I had. Fairly simple stuff really.

    Also got hold of some better damping stuff

    [​IMG]

    This has now made the pump totally silent, the system, with one of the fans turned right down is almost totally silent now, even under load.
     
    Last edited: Mar 24, 2012
  7. Veteran

    Veteran Ancient Guru

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    Nice man,enjoy:)
     
  8. Erro

    Erro Guest

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    Delightful read! The section regarding removal of the sticker certainly brought a smile to my face, its definitely something I would do also.

    Out of curiosity, why did you opt down the road of selecting parts, instead of a 'standard' kit?

    From what I read on the forums, selecting individual water cooling components and putting them all together is half the fun. However for some reason or another, constructing a loop in this manner creates a more expensive cooling solution. I've been eyeing the XSPC Rasa 750 RX240 and EK-KIT H3O 240 HFX. I believe the 650d has some problems accommodating the RX240, and in order to do so you end up with an unsexy but effective solution.

    Nice to read that you had a positive experience setting up the loop and have no regrets. I think I'll have to follow suit in near future...
     
  9. wlw_wl

    wlw_wl Master Guru

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    Erro - I've seen a build where a guy put 3 rads: 120, 360 and 200 inside 600T (same interior as 650D) with 0 modding.
     
  10. The Laughing Ma

    The Laughing Ma Ancient Guru

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    A few reasons

    The way I wanted the loop laid out meant that none of the kits had the parts I needed, sticking the RAD in the drive bay meant that I had no room left for a separate RES and Pump, I needed to go down the Res top and Pump route, none of the kits came with this option.

    Pump, the pumps provided in the kits had mixed reviews with most of them coming up as being quite noisy, choosing my own pump allowed me to get a decent strong pump that was also quiet.

    Appearance, again. The kits all came with silver compression fittings, and clear hosing. I had decided that I wanted the set up colour to match my mobo colours (i.e red and black)

    I could have bought the compression fittings separate and used a coloured / dyed fluid. I didn't do this because

    a). My inexperience in what bits fitted what meant I was not sure what compression fittings I should order to fit the supplied hose and weather the fittings would fit the bits provided in the kit

    Of course I know now that the bits in the kit would most likely have been G1/4 fittings and that meant I could have order pretty much whatever fittings I wanted and then ordered the right size coloured hose at the time. I didn't know this at the time.

    b). I moved away from dyes based on the info of other water cooling folk, basically saying that distilled water is just as good and that a lot of the dyes in these coloured fluids tend to have detrimental effects on the water cooling parts.

    Finally I would say I learned a lot more by selecting my own bits rather than having them all pre selected and of course it meant I got the final set up the way I wanted it.
     

  11. The Laughing Ma

    The Laughing Ma Ancient Guru

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    Well today is a sad day, Project Noob died on me.

    The first bloody coughing that showed something was wrong happened yesterday when the computer locked up on me whilst I was messing around with Rainmeter. A Hard reset and the system rebooted and I thought nothing of it. Checked eventlog with no joy.

    Then today, playing L4D2, and got a hard lock up with random sound distortions. Hard reset again, looked in event log again and found nothing, the last time I saw lock ups like this it was caused by BF3 and required a tweak to my GPUs Vcore.

    Got back in to L4D2 and after 10 minutes Hardlock up but this time the reset resulted in the PSU cycling on and off. Case open, checked the CPU temp, Checked the GPU temp, checked the PSU and found it was amazingly hot. Conclusion PSU died.

    Can't complain the Corsair 520 has had some serious up time, has been in at least three systems and has lasted at least 5 years.

    Luckily I also have an old Hiper 580 kicking about, well when I saw kicking about it was installed in my old Core 2 Rig and hasn't seen power in about a year.

    So a stripping we will go.

    Objective to confirm PSU failure and get the rig working, cable management is a no no, and key components need power everything else is left unhooked. So no light, no DVD drive, no front USB

    The result is quite a Frankenstein's monster

    [​IMG]

    but it works again, and confirms that my Corsair 520 had indeed died, I left all the old Corsair cables in place because a total rebuild is a big f*ck that. So I order one of these and it should just plug in to the cables that are there

    [​IMG]

    Should be here on Tuesday and with any luck Ill get the old girl back to her pretty looking self.
     
  12. dune2

    dune2 Guest

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    Great post, a joy to read. Certainly reminded me of the first time I messed with water. I remember my mate saying: water and electrics, are you sure this is a wise choice? But once you go liquid, you stay with it. I hope your faulty PSU didn't mess up anything else in the system. Btw, I think the colors and lighting work very will. Good job!
     
  13. The Laughing Ma

    The Laughing Ma Ancient Guru

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    Thanks man, I thought long and hard about the colour choice and the Red and Black matched the Mobo so well it ended up being a no brainer. I was going to get UV lighting and black anti kink coils but frankly it worked better without them.

    As for the PSU death, luckily it didn't take anything but that's why I bought the Corsair. The reviews said they were rebadged Seasonic and the Seasonics had always gotten good reviews so IF, or should that be WHEN, it finally did fail it would do so without taking anything with it. It's been rock solid until two days ago so although buying another Corsair makes my job easier on the reinstall, I am buying another one because the 520W was a solid unit despite it's failure.
     
  14. The Laughing Ma

    The Laughing Ma Ancient Guru

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    PSU replace

    As expected the new Corsair PSU turned up on time. So time to remove the life support donor PSU and get Frankenstein back to looking nice, but first some images showing the new PSU next to its future home as well as some examples of just how Frankenstein'd the replacement PSU was.

    [​IMG][​IMG]


    So first things first, strip the donor PSU out and reconnect the Corsair leads which I had left in place inside the case and tidy the cables back up, the results

    [​IMG]

    Yeah the image looks the same as the one I showed in my Watercooling log, save for the blue cables they are just hanging in the way and I couldn't be bothered moving them to get the picture, perhaps the following two images will help

    [​IMG][​IMG]

    They show the cross section of the case and specifically the gap I had to work with between the back of the Mobo and the edge of the case cover. No more than 25mm but key thing is when the case cover went on it went on first time with no issues.

    So cables tidy, time to do some light dusting. Well light is what I thought at first. Observe the location where the old PSU sat.

    [​IMG]

    Well I've never been a believer in the theory that dust will kill computer parts and for the most part going out of your way to dust computer parts seems like a massive waste of time however I am not going out my way, the PSU is out so I might as well clean it up if nothing more than to make it look nice. The screws at the front were easy to get out but the ones at the back required the use of the world's stubbiest screwdriver.

    [​IMG][​IMG]

    and out pops the filter, a clear look shows quite a bit of dust but still don't think this will have had much to do with the PSU failure.

    [​IMG]

    Hmmm that filter had quite a bit of dust on it I wonder what the other filters on the case will be like. The top exit fan filter can't be gotten to without removing the motherboard so that's not gonna happen but the front intake, not an issu.....

    [​IMG][​IMG]

    ...good god that is one dusty filter.

    Some light dusting and we have some nice clean filters and covers that are ready to go back in the case.

    [​IMG]

    The next stage was just reinstalling the new PSU, I considered sticking it in to the case with the intake fan drawing air from within the case. Heat rises so the only warm air it would get would be from whatever was being produced from the Hard Drives. So I hooked everything up, which was a pain, working the modular cables in to the PSU around the watercooling
    tubing, annoying but not impossible. Final task route the 8pin CPU power cable, which on the new Corsair is actually 2 x 4pin plugs where as the old Corsair had a separate 8pin plug and a separate 4 pin plug. The new one gives one less useless cable to hide away put when you plug both adaptors in they don't sit completely square. They make a good solid connection but one sits at a slight angle.

    Anyway long story short the cable was to short to route up the back of the motherboard and plug it in with the PSU orientated with the intake fan drawing air from the case.

    So unplug, get the cables out the way and flip the PSU to draw air from the bottom of the case. Plug the cables in again, they actually end up looking better and fitting better because the modular cable ports are all located at the bottom of the PSU now rather than the top and better yet the 2x4pin CPU plug now comfortably reaches the port on the motherboard.

    One last tidy up and she's ready to go

    [​IMG]

    Push the button and the system fires up first time with everything working as expected.

    [​IMG]

    Gets to windows with no issue and everything at first seems to be alright, but... there's a noise. Something new that wasn't there before, not obvious but there in the background something that will get annoying over a long time. Do some digging round and end up confirming that it is one my fans, in fact the intake fan that had that awesomely dusty filter infront of it. Maybe I knocked it or maybe I unbalanced some dust that was on it but turning the fan speed down seems to sort it.

    Replacing the PSU also gave me a chance to give the water cooling loop a good look over, it's been in the system for a month or so now. The intake for the rad seems clean of dust the rad itself is also looking clean, all the compression joints are holding well and the ones around the pump and res have had some serious bending and flexing getting the old PSU out and the new PSU in.
     
  15. The Laughing Ma

    The Laughing Ma Ancient Guru

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    I knew I couldn't do just one thing on this water cooling project. So order one of these bad boys the other day.

    [​IMG]

    and it has just arrived. Due to terminal lazyness though I have only gotten just as far as assembling it and sticking the compression fittings on, the lazyness factor means no pics today no build log and no actual fitting of the block.

    I do however have some questions.

    1). Is my 120mm rad with push pull going to be enough, so far I don't have a huge overclock on my CPU and being honest this is just another to see if I can project rather than being a set up for future massive overclocks. Though given that their ain't many 1156 CPUs kicking about now a large OC may be in the books when I finally decide to upgrade to a 670GTX.

    2). Ummmm I did have another question but I got distracted by pudding and have totally forgotten what it was, so for now this is a place saver.
     

  16. maddy2012

    maddy2012 Guest

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    LOL snap, got that mobo block as well, i now can't decide whether to upgrade or not. I keep wanting a z77 setup but that block will look sweet.

    Your build looks wicked btw.
     
  17. The Laughing Ma

    The Laughing Ma Ancient Guru

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    That's what I was considering doing but I really couldn't justify the cost of upgrading to the Maximus 5 Formula, even though it looks totally bad ass. Sticking with the 750 and OCing it to match my next GPU upgrade along with WCing the motherboard seemed like a better option. Got any pics of your mobo with this bad boy installed?

    Thanks, should look even better once the mobo cooler goes in.

    I am toying with getting a dual 120 rad. Just finished doing some measurements inside the case and if I remove the top exhaust fan, which is freaking massive by the way. I should have just enough room to squeeze a slim line dual 120 rad plus some slim line fans in.

    Just ordered the slim line dual 120 Rad, gonna take a bit of rearranging inside the case to get this all up and running but should be interesting.

    Oh and my number 2 question was component order.

    Res + Pump -> Rad -> CPU -> Mobo -> Res + Pump

    or

    Res + Pump -> CPU -> Mobo -> Rad -> Res + Pump

    I currently use the former but the latter is meant to give cooling improvement and will help with the layout of the tubing with the new Rad.
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2012
  18. maddy2012

    maddy2012 Guest

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    I'm no expert, but i think loop order gives minimal differences in temps, maybe 1 or 2 degrees, because it's a closed loop and the water is moving so fast.

    I'd just go for what is tidiest if i were you.

    I was thinking of the Formula 5, but i've decided on the MSI GD65, fancy a change of colour, and that Mayhems pastel blue coolant looks wicked.
     
  19. The Laughing Ma

    The Laughing Ma Ancient Guru

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    So here we go, the addon project to Project Noob.

    Project Noob Stage 2

    Objectives

    Well I mused over doing a full system upgrade and going down the route of Z77, I was looking at the Formula 5 but it seems no one knows the release date for this motherboard. I have however instead decided to uprate the cooling on the motherboard and see just how much I can get out of the I5 750. I should then be able to push on and upgrade my GPU to one of the 600 series Nvidia cards, the 670 or 680 maybe.

    To bullet point it

    - Set rig up for maximum OC potential and GPU upgrade
    - Expand my water cooling knowledge a bit further
    - Another clean up of the rig, I've moved house since Stage 1 and the computer took a bit of a knock about

    Parts 1

    The original idea was to get a motherboard cooling block and just stick it in to my current cooling loop. The options where to go for two separate North and South bridge coolers but since their is a single all in one cooler which will fit perfectly with my rigs set up I opted for the EK Maximus Formula 3 all in one cooler along with some EK compression fittings. I used XSPC fittings on stage 1 and was going to go for them again but alas they were out of stock when I ordered the cooling block.

    Assembly 1

    So my first order consisted of the motherboard water block and the compression fittings, here they are all nicely packed


    [​IMG]

    The small clamp at the bottom of the image was to clamp my current set up closed and allow me to add the motherboard block in to the loop however some testing of the clamp showed that the clamp cannot be done up tight enough to prevent water flowing through the tubing I am going to use.

    [​IMG]

    saying that at the time I thought a clamp and rearrange adding the motherboard cooler in and then topping up may just have been enough... I was wrong about that.

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    The EK compression fittings, the threaded G1/4 thread is a tad shorter than the XSPC ones but the fitting itself is a bit bigger overall but it still looks like a quality bit of kit and it's the same colour so it should all match up.

    On to the main event the EK motherboard cooler

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    Damn that sure is a lot of bits, I may even have to read the instructions.

    So what have we got?

    [​IMG]

    Northbridge cooler, that circlular insert is for the Maximus ROG power light, nice touch I like that fact that I can keep it on the new water block

    [​IMG]

    Southbridge cooler, nothing to special at first glance

    [​IMG]

    Northbridge - Southbridge Connecting Piece

    [​IMG]

    So the block comes in two sections and you have to use this plus a gasket, rubber gromit and several allen bolts to assemble the whole thing.

    The main problem with this set up seems to be the fact that the gromit was round yet the channel to insert it in to was a rectangle with two big lumps on the end, well you can see the image.

    The key to getting this together was a task that requires three hands to complete put essentially required the North and South Bridge blocks being lined up next to each other on a flat surface. The round rubber gromit being pushed and held down inside the NOT ROUND channel and then the metal gasket being slide on top of the rubber gromit while being firmly pushed down. I then inserted one of the allen bolts while holding the whole assembly together before pushing the whole thing down on to the two pieces of the cooling block while trying to keep the whole thing lined up.

    This took four attempts, one slip and the round rubber gromit would pop out of the NOT ROUND channel and the whole thing would have to be restarted, annoying to say the least.

    Once the first two allen bolts where in and tightened the whole assembly could be let alone whilst the remaining allen bolts where screwed in place. Remember not to tighten then one at a time but rather screw them in a bit at a time then move on to the opposite bolt and screw that in and rinse and repeat.

    [​IMG]

    The result of this is one complete motherboard cooling block, shiny ain't it. What the image doesn't show you is how heavy this thing is, quite is the answer!

    Once the block was assembled I could then screw the new compression fittings on. A technique I used on Stage 1 was to wrap the fitting in a cloth and then grip it with a pipe wrench. This helped protect the finish on the fitting whilst giving it good tight fit.

    [​IMG]

    Unfortunately the EK compression fitting don't seem to be made of the same stuff as the XSPC ones as this close up shows

    [​IMG]

    Yeah a few nicks on the finish, kinda annoyed at that but once the fitting is on and it's in the case you won't see the damage but still knowing it's there is kinda annoying.

    So that's that, the block is assembled and ready to rock. Just gotta strip the motherboard get the older cooler off and install this bad ass. Well that's what I thought anyway.

    The realisation

    So at this stage I had the block complete and ready to go, the plan was to just plumb the whole thing right in to my current setup, sticking it in after the CPU and using the existing 120.1 Rad but during the assembly and to be honest prior to ordering it I had had a nagging feeling that a 120.1 may not be enough.

    I decided to do some research, some thinking, a little future planning and the result seems to be 1 x 120.1 Rad per item being cooled. So since adding the motherboard in along side the CPU cooler already installed this meant I would really need to go for a bigger radiator.

    The problem with getting a larger radiator is the size of my case, it's left me with two options;

    1). Strip the old 120.1 Rad out, move my hard drives down and bunch them together in the bottom drive bay racking, currently they are evenly spaced for cooling purposes across both drive bay sets, remove the upper drive bay set and this would create enough room to replace the 120.1 radiator with a new 120.2 radiator.

    2). The option I went for, was to mount the new radiator in the roof of the case, this required the removal of the huge top mounted exhuast fan, the rerouting of some cables and the creative mounting of the radiator to the top of the case.

    The great thing though is it leaves me with the option of keeping my 120.1 radiator where it is and using it for extra cooling or for potential future expansion in to GPU cooling, win win really!

    The issue with roof mounting was the limited space between the top of the case and the motherboard, specifically the locking tab for the CPU ATX +12v cable. Some rough measurements came up with a space between case roof and motherboard cable connection points of around 60mm.

    When I say rough I mean, power down system stick a tape measure in, get tape measure stuck on upper exhaust fan guard, spend ten minutes trying to get tape measure out. End up using a length of string to get gap and measure bit of string. Pro modding going here folks ;)

    So in essence the results of my measuring told me that my radiator and fan choice had to really be no more 55mm, 5mm wiggle room, or spanner measurement variable as it is better known. This meant going away and doing a bit of research in to what was out there that could do the job for me

    Parts 2

    XPSC 120.2 Slim Radiator
    2 x Yate Loon 1350 Slim Fan

    Total size together comes to 55mm, nice!
     
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2012
  20. The Laughing Ma

    The Laughing Ma Ancient Guru

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    Rad Test Fitting

    [​IMG]

    Parts nicely packaged, 1 slim line radiator and 2 x slim line fans.

    First thing was to get the top mounted exhaust fan out, now I had a look at this during Stage 1 of Project Noob and came to the conclusion that this would be a right bitch so skipped cleaning the fan at that point in time. Turns out I was right!

    [​IMG]

    That sliver rail at the top of case, there is one on each side of the case and they are used to lock the case covers in place. They also happen to cover access to the screws that hold the exhaust fan in place. The rail is held in place by two guide rails that are screwed on to the case, one of them is highlighted. Once the screws are removed the guide rails can be tapped out of position and the locking mechanism for the case can be dropped down enough to allow access to the exhaust fan's screws. The Image below is on the opposite side of the case but you can clearly see one of the screws that holds the exhaust fan in place. Much more accessible with the cover locking mechanism unscrewed

    [​IMG]

    Much messing about and of course dropping screws inside the case then spending five minutes finding them and finally the exhaust fan, filter, fan holder and metal grill all come out in as one piece.

    [​IMG]

    Damn that is one dusty fan and filter but with it gone I am left with this.

    [​IMG]

    A big empty hole and lots of space in the top of the case to stick a radiator.

    A few test fits of the radiator showed that the DVD drive and the cables for the case mounted USB, Front Panel Audio and Firewire would cause an issue.

    [​IMG]

    This image shows the set up with the DVD drive removed and the cables from the USB port etc getting in the way. Not really an issue. Unstick them from the roof and do a little bit of cable routing. The image also shows just how much room there is between the top of the case and the top of the motherboard, which you can see in the bottom left of the image.

    Mounting the radiator in the roof was the next problem. I decided to use the exhaust fan grill and mounting bracket and attach the radiator to this. A few trial runs started with simple stuff such as cable tying the rad to the mounting bracket

    [​IMG]

    Simple effective, not gonna work, the only way to cable tie it ended up with the radiator sitting far to far forward in the case. Quite a bit of thinking and testing went in to finding a simple solution that wouldn't require a huge amount of case modding but the result was to simply screw the radiator to the exhaust fan grill and then clamp the whole thing in using the exhaust fan mount. Apart from finding some screws the right length it is actually a shockingly simple and potentially effective solution.

    [​IMG]

    This image shows the rad bolted to the grill, with the fans attached. The screws that come with the radiator are far to long for the slim profile Yate Loons I decided to use so I had to add some rubber gromits to the screws to allow me to tighten them fully without puncturing the radiator core.

    The compression fittings on the radiator are for sizing purposes only as they are actually a tad too small for the tubing I am using and don't really offer a secure fit by that I mean I could pull the tube clear of the compression fitting even when it was fully tightened.

    [​IMG]

    This shows the radiator and fans mounted in the case, although the image doesn't show it very clearly but the gap between the +12ATX plug locking mechanism and the fan isn't enough to get a gnat's ball hair between. It required me to remove the radiator from the exhaust fan grill cover, the set up I showed in the last picture, and fit the grill and fan mount in to the case first, which was a bigger pain in the backside than getting them out, and then stick the rad and fans in and bolt them in place afterwards.

    That's as far as I've gotten, I am waiting for some more compression fittings to arrive, as I said the ones on the rad at the moment aren't the correct size and while I could just take the two off the old 120.1 radiator I am still deciding weather to dual radiator the set up over remove the 120.1 and just stick with the new 120.2 radiator instead. Decisions decisions!

    Some thoughts before I move on.

    1). Dual radiator or not
    2). Will the attachment method I have used for the 120.2 be suitable for the heavier radiator, it works fine just now but when it is full of water it will be heavier.
    3). More cable routing, sigh!
    4). Best tubing routing for effective cooling and aesthetic appeal
    5). One of the new fans is clicking in use, catching or does it need a better fitting?
     
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2012

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