Worklog: Project Thief - Fully Watercooled Dual PC

[stren]

Alright so more photos taking the old rig apart - we left off by removing the pci cards and the power supply:

So now let's remove the cpu block and check the tim spread:

Not the best but not awful. Now time to take the motherboard out:

Out it comes:

Which leaves a sad empty and dusty case!

Now it's time to take apart the rad setup:

Remove the steel bars:

Then the fans:

I noticed one side of the rads now had white stains on them, these were the sides on the top:

Compared side by side to the underside (bottom rad):

Anyone know what that is?

 

[Rubycon]

Not sure what I'm looking at here. With the pictures provided it looks like dust to me. A macro (close up) picture would be better.

I'd be more concerned about the lack of label over your fan motors. Those bearing ends should be covered up!

 

[stren]

Thanks Rubycon. Here's a close up, you can scratch it off with a fingernail:

I didn't realize those bearings weren't sealed! Lol I'll definitely have to make some custom stickers then!

 

[Rubycon]

Looks like flux from brazing.
As long as it doesn't leak no worries.
It can be cleaned up and painted if it bothers you.

 

[stren]

Yeah it only bothers me because I don't remember seeing it when I got the rads. Is it normal for this to come out afterwards? It's on top of the paint too.

 

[Rubycon]

If this occurred later than there are two possibilities.

1) The rad was prepped poorly and acidic residue was left behind before painting. The paint was given way leaving behind a crusty residue.

2) There is a very tiny leak near that tube, not enough to drip but enough to provide a source of moisture to allow some reaction to occur again producing something that resembles a leachate.

If there is a miniscule leak a pressure test can prove it. Higher than normal operating pressure in the 3-5 bar range (always check mfr test pressure ratings!) will augment the effect of this leaking. If moisture is not present than it's fairly safe to assume condition 1 is the culprit. I'd clean the area up well before testing.

 

[stren]

Sounds like a plan. This would have been at the top of the rad, so I'm thinking maybe not a leak, because it should have gone to the other side of the rad. Still good to test though.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

I have seen some of that on my rads as well. Good to know it isn't much to worry about, except in case 2.

 

[stren]

Well I haven't done any more on it yet. Still working through the photos from the last two weeks. So here's another update...

So we left off with the antec 300 emptied out, here's another shot of it next to the TX10 now that it's empty:

I was also now left with a big stack of fans. This is without the 15 fans that have already been used in the TX10:

Now I could start rebuilding the gaming rig into the TX10:

Adding the 120 rad for the motherboard loop:

Testing that it still fits in the case:

Soon it must be time to start tidying up before I get slapped!

However first I need to get my work computer up. The free 360 is being used for the workstation motherboard/ram/gpu loop and will sit approximately here:

So now to take apart the loop that was leak testing in order to add the rad:

I changed out the 45 degree bitspower compression on the GPU as it felt like it had a slight leak in in that position, so it has a temporary barb, I also removed the pump sticker. It's much cleaner now, and who needs an overpriced dress kit

That's all for now!

 

[stren]

Alright I have a question about sleeving, I'm getting grey, titanium grey, black and red from mdpc and wondering the best pattern to do, what do you think?

 

[billyb0b]

option D

 

[stren]

Thanks dude

Here's a quick update - time to start drilling!

Adding some fill ports:

2 done:

All done:

Not as messy now:

Time to get the workstation up and running so I can get back to work (once I've cleaned up of course). I'll be using the Koolance dual bay dual D5 reservoir for now. It's a real pain to use because it doesn't bleed well, however if you add on some tube from the fill ports on the res up to the fill ports on the case you can keep the water level above the reservoir and it really helps.

Now we've freed up a 360 rad for the workstation gpu/motherboard/ram loop, we can put the loop together:

I'm using AP15's temporarily until I'm done painting the low speed yates. Also that one barb is temporary too:

The wiring is temporary too. So for loop testing, I disconnected the QDC's pulled the motherboard tray out of the case and the 360 out seperately, then I reconnected and filled the loop and left it to bleed/leak test on the counter for a few hours.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

option b or g

 

[stren]

Alright time for another update. Here's the loop testing for the workstation. Bear in mind this is not the final loop - it will be tidier with nicer fittings, for now I need to get my workstation up and running, I can pretty it up later.

Some of the tube is the pink tube that I had mentioned before, that will be replaced. Bleeding of the annoying koolance reservoir was made easier by the dedicated fill ports and by the QDC's. The D5's struggle to push that much air out of the system, so it was much easier to bleed the cpu section and the radiator seperately and then connect them up as a whole:

Now that it had passed leak testing it was time to take it to the office:

It was now heavy (and bulky) and I didn't trust the BP crystal links not to loosen up if I didn't take it down the step smoothly, so I found a piece of plywood in the shed to help:

First boot! Yay! It wasn't just the kitchen that was covered in parts, so was the office, it's a real mess as I still had my old workstation running while I tweaked the clocks on this one.

I temporarily put the power supply in the top chamber while I did the overclocking tweaking:

Did a quick bench to see the limit of the chip, I couldn't get past 5.22GHz on water. I tried up to 1.66V, but nothing past 1.56 really helped. 5.22 means it's a pretty average 3930K, certainly no golden chip I tried to settle for a 24/7 clock of 4.95, but I didn't like the volts, so settled down for 4.9 instead, I'll see if I can tweak the memory faster than 2133 CL9 later, here's a SS of the 5.22:

Next I installed the power supplies properly, here you can see the optional PSU support bracket for long power supplies. It's probably not necessary, but why not? It comes with some rubber tape to damp any vibrations:

Here's the first PSU installed:

 

[stren]

Took a break to put together an ivy rig for a co-worker:

A board!

blah blah blah marketing - where's the window that the extreme boards have?

Now there's a board

I liked the door hanger - unfortunately this is for an overclocked workstation so not too useful here:

A large box for some memory (32giggles):

Matching:

Oh and a cpu:

Best put that in the socket then:

We should remove that plastic cover too:

 

[stren]

Putting in that H100:

Yeah I know no custom water loop, but this is going to someone who can't be trusted with such things

miniThief is getting there:

miniThief- now with 100% more PSU:

Don't forget a GPU (9800GT ftw!)

Close up:

ISO:

 

[stren]

So back to the *real* project. Now that my workstation was up and running, I could take the old one down:

OMG dust! This is three months worth:

Still yucky:

Got out the duster and started taking it apart:

Nearly done

Now I've gone and made the kitchen messy again:

 

[OVerLoRDI]

I think I see some Monsoon fittings. How do you like those? I was considering them for my rig to replace my barbs and hose clamps.

Also I like the progress updates

And, man that is some fine dust.

 

[stren]

I think I see some Monsoon fittings. How do you like those? I was considering them for my rig to replace my barbs and hose clamps.

Also I like the progress updates

And, man that is some fine dust.

I like them a lot, it's nice to see if anything is slipping out, plus the tool is easier on the fingers than the gnurled ones. The paint is tough but I did manage to scrape one up as it really needed to be tightened down and the tool slipped as I was doing it.

 

[stren]

So as it's the weekend you get bonus updates

This is how I initially wanted the PSU's to give maximum air intake:

However the left PSU once it had cables would conflict with the 360 rad mounted in front of it, so I decided to move it:

Done, you can see there's still a good amount of space in between:

Now to mount them - they're going in the second to bottom compartment:

and mounted:

Now time to mount all the hard drives - here are the gaming rig drives:

Now let's add in the workstation drives:

old skool x25e:

All done:

 

[stren]

Now to cable it - I hate how asus only give you sata cables with right angles at one end and straights at the other. For this build I really need straight to straights, so I had to order some more from the egg, this is the temporary rats nest:

Yikes!

 

[Chaotic42]

I don't watercool, but it's nice to see people posting serious projects here. Almost like it's an enthusiast site or something...

 

[stren]

I don't watercool, but it's nice to see people posting serious projects here. Almost like it's an enthusiast site or something...

lol

 

[stren]

Alright a quick update as I got some more time to process photos (on a side note the first mdpc package came woot!)

I got the workstation back up and running:

But I had to use the gaming side for location of the power supply as the cables were not long enough to reach the real location. As you can see it makes a good storage room also:

Workstation in action - no 2nd 8800gt yet because I'm only driving two screens, the card is being used as a test card for now for some other rigs I'm building.

Again a lot of fittings are temporary. So now back to the gaming rig. I transferred the sweet trident ram from my worksation to the gaming rig (I think it maybe hypers), it can do 2130 CL 8 and probably more but that's the limit of my 990x IMC. Should have tried two sticks in the 3770K rig I slapped together to see what it could really do! The ugly p6t board that was being used for the workstation is now going into a generic network maintenance use and will be put in a rack.

A shot of that sexy ram:

And the motherboard tray:

Here you can see I had soldered on an extra molex connector to the board (just to the bottom of the STX). My old case didn't have room to connect a power cable to the real connector, so this helped me give the gpus enough power.

And now time to swap the 920 for that sweet 990x:

 

[Chaotic42]

Alright a quick update as I got some more time to process photos (on a side note the first mdpc package came woot!)

I got the workstation back up and running:

Oh, sweet, wonderful case...