Zap's first full water-cooled build

[Zap]

I've messed with water cooling at work using a Koolance EXOS² for graphics cards, but this is my first real build. This build is for my wife, who was using an overclocked Core 2 Quad with a GTX 260 and a VelociRaptor. She plays WoW and other games such as L4D2. The purpose for this build was to have increased performance and lower noise compared to her old system plus having power switch and USB ports on top of the case (old case had USB ports on the BOTTOM which sucks for a system on the ground).

Parts:
Asetek Waterchill complete water cooling kit ($80 from SVC on clearance)
Intel Core i5 750 CPU
EVGA P55 LE motherboard (has dual socket 775/1156 mounting holes)
G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1600
BFG GTX 285 (re-purposed from my LAN party rig)
Danger Den block for graphics card
BFG ES-800 PSU (re-purposed from another rig)
Lian Li PC-60FNW case (to replace her Lian Li PC-7+, wanted something with coolant tube grommets/holes plus buttons/ports on the top)
OCZ Agility 60GB SSD (for Windows 7 and World of Warcraft)
Samsung F3 1TB (for Steam and other games)
random optical drives and card reader
random power extension cables

Here is the box that the Waterchill kit came in. HDD is for scale. I actually bought TWO of the kits because I was going to water cool my rig too. Good thing I did because there were a couple leaks - more on this later.

Here are the contents of the kit.

I've started assembling the system with the drives and the PSU. Nice and shiney inside.

I rotated the HDD trays so the cables go out the "back" so they aren't seen through the side window.

I'm going to hide cables behind the motherboard tray.

The 8-pin plug will go through this handy hole in the motherboard tray.

Here are the posts for the CPU water block, mounted on the motherboard.

I temporarily put the block on upside down to show the rotation. The mounting holes are indicated. Socket 775 is slightly rotated.

The block is now mounted.

Motherboard now installed in the case.

 

[Zap]

Graphics card gets the block installed. Yeah, the copper was a bit stained.

Graphics card installed in the system.

Another angle.

Tubing installed. I was going to position one of the graphics card barbs pointing down, but Danger Den had a manufacturing issue where the threads in the block wasn't deep enough for the barb to seat all the way. Their solution was thicker O-rings (since it was just a hair off) but I was not given those thicker O-rings.

Another angle.

Yeah, one of the two outlet tubes was kinked. CPU stays in the 50°C range under load, so I'm fine with it.

I took the pump out to troubleshoot some leaks.

I started testing this on the kitchen counter.

Ended up with the system on the kitchen floor.

I found out there were TWO leaks. One was on the radiator where the compression fitting bolted on. This should be repairable with some plumbers tape. The other leak is where the compression fitting exits the pump. I'm not sure if that is fixable because I don't know how to remove it. Anyone have any pro tips? I mentioned earlier that I had bought two of the kits. Well, I basically pieced together one working kit out of the two.

 

[Zap]

This picture shows the tubes exiting the case, plus how I get power to the fans on the radiator.

Time to get ghetto! After fiddling with the system due to the leaks and then being paranoid and doing around 5 days worth of leak testing (including power cycling, moving tubes, etc.) I was getting tired of messing with it and just wanted it finished. I was going to make a stand for the radiator out of aluminum but then decided just to use cardboard for now. I used a scrap piece of aluminum from my failed welding experiment as a weighted base and some double-sided foam tape on cardboard for the rest of the stand.

It actually works really well, just doesn't look that great. The purpose of having it separate from the system and on a stand is so that it can be hidden out of the way or pointed in some direction.

While it is sitting on the case, I have a folded up towel to keep it from scratching the case.

Here's the back of the motherboard. Extra power cables are hidden behind the PSU. I've routed front panel cables behind a support bar so they aren't seen through the side window.

Side is on and Windows installed.

Here's the window side.

Oh yeah, purple cold cathodes by request.

The system turned out pretty nice (except for the ghetto cardboard stand). GPU temps were around 70°C but the GPU is in the loop after the CPU and the CPU was around 50°C with Prime95 running 3 threads alongside Furmark. GPU has a tiny factory overclock for now. I've left power management and Turbo enabled for the CPU, so it can throttle down to around 1.53GHz idling, and Turbo up to 4GHz for a single core and around 3.5GHz with all four cores loaded.

World of Warcraft, of course, plays flawlessly. With everything turned up high at 1920x1200, Dalaran was in the 60FPS range. Loading times with the SSD was noticeably shorter than the VelociRaptor, but was not anywhere near instantaneous. Just running around the environment was smoother though. WoW often has little hitches as you move about, and it no longer seems to do that. I'm guessing the hitches was stuff loading off the hard drive as they pop into the view distance limit.

 

[Kenmitch]

Damn....You've had that kit for a long time

Nice pictures! The cardboard work....Sometimes ya just gotta go getto to get up and running. I'm sure you'll be able to whip something up later that looks alot better.

I bought the same kit as you way back when there was a post on here about it. It was my first dabble in water cooling also. Gave me the push that I needed to try it out. In the end the only thing that remains in my system is the radiator from the kit. I decided water cooling was cool and not risky at all. I wound up replacing everything except the radiator and adding a single x-flow in my drive bays also.

Still debating on a water block for my 5850 tho. Just glad I could get everything in my case with room to spare

 

[daw123]

ZAP, how comes your water block is mounted skewed across the socket / CPU - would that affect temperatures?

 

[Zap]

Damn....You've had that kit for a long time

Since the clearance deal in, what, December?

ZAP, how comes your water block is mounted skewed across the socket / CPU - would that affect temperatures?

I described that on the 8th picture of the first post. Basically the socket 1156 motherboard has dual sets of mounting holes so you can use socket 775 coolers on it. The second set is slightly rotated from the first set.

 

[Meghan54]

ZAP, how comes your water block is mounted skewed across the socket / CPU - would that affect temperatures?

As he mentioned in his posts above, the block is a Socket 775 compatible block and he is putting it on an EVGA P55 LE motherboard which has dual socket 775/1156 mounting holes. The 775 mounting holes are canted off center a little causing the block to sit skewed. That is all.

 

[mhouck]

congrats on completing the build! Your radiator mounting technique has inspired me to watch Macgyver!

 

[alfa147x]

That's awesome for $80 might look into a kit like that. A couple of questions:
Why does the CPU block have 3 "ports" on it? Also do you think a kit of this caliber would be able to keep my E8400 @ 4 ghz like it is now using a old / large P4 cooler? (Water Cooling N00b here)

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

They do make 45* angle Fatboy DD barbs you know.


click pic for larger view

You could remove that kink. Just a suggestion.

Nice build btw :thumbsup:

 

[Meghan54]

Why does the CPU block have 3 "ports" on it?

That's because it's an old design of cpu block....was typical of some designs in years past. New designs are simply one in, one out.

As the Antarctica, the cpu block included in Zap's kit, was considered a high restriction block, one inlet and two outlets helped flow and cooling.

But compared to current blocks, it has several design flaws. The base plate is extremely thick compared to current blocks, hence hampers the transfer of heat from the cpu to the coolant. The channels are few and wide, compared to the new microchannel (Koolance 360 or EK Supreme HF) or micropin (Swiftech XT) blocks of today

I'd be more concerned/worried about the flow rate the pump can provide, though. Back in the day it was "new", circa 2004/5, it was good, but with only 7ft of head pressure---compared to something like the DDC3.2 with its 20ft of head pressure---it's rather underpowered.

But, nice start to what will undoubtedly become an obsession, like the rest of us who fell into the watercooling money pit hobby.

Now Zap will start cruising Sidewinders, XS, Performance PCs, Jab-Tech drooling over the newest cpu/gpu blocks, pumps, radiators, fans, tubing, barbs/compression fittings....and the cash register will ring endlessly from this point onward.

 

[Gillbot]

Where you ran the 8 pin through, double check the corners. I did that on my old case and a corner with a sharp edge ended up tearing through the insulation on the wire and frying everything.

 

[daw123]

I described that on the 8th picture of the first post. Basically the socket 1156 motherboard has dual sets of mounting holes so you can use socket 775 coolers on it. The second set is slightly rotated from the first set.

Sorry, missed that bit in your post.

 

[cbn]

I think that stand in aluminum or plastic would look pretty nice, but isn't it possible to just mount a double rad down the backside of a case using one of those swiftech products?

Or do you want the rad mounted vertically (out in the open) for better airflow?

 

[DrMrLordX]

Cardboard rad mount = win.

 

[Powermoloch]

It looks so beautiful :*)

 

[WoodButcher]

Congrats Zap, boutgodamntime!!

 

[Zap]

Why does the CPU block have 3 "ports" on it? Also do you think a kit of this caliber would be able to keep my E8400 @ 4 ghz like it is now using a old / large P4 cooler? (Water Cooling N00b here)

It would have zero problems keeping your E8400 cool. Unfortunately SVC sold out of their clearance deals so good luck scoring this kind of pricing.

The CPU block has the center port for water going in. In fact, there's a little slot that forces water through onto the center of the CPU area where the fins are on the block, kind of like a nozzle. The two outlets I guess are to allow water to spread out on both sides.

But, nice start to what will undoubtedly become an obsession, like the rest of us who fell into the watercooling money pit hobby.

Now Zap will start cruising Sidewinders, XS, Performance PCs, Jab-Tech drooling over the newest cpu/gpu blocks, pumps, radiators, fans, tubing, barbs/compression fittings....and the cash register will ring endlessly from this point onward.

I've already been perusing Performance-PCs.com quite frequently, and purchased some odds/ends from Jab-tech for this build (the Yate Loon fans for the radiator to replace the noisy Adda that came with the kit, the 3-pin extensions & "Y", etc.).

Where you ran the 8 pin through, double check the corners. I did that on my old case and a corner with a sharp edge ended up tearing through the insulation on the wire and frying everything.

Thanks for the tip. I had run my fingers through the opening and it didn't feel that sharp, but next time I get in there I'll line it with electrical tape.

I think that stand in aluminum or plastic would look pretty nice, but isn't it possible to just mount a double rad down the backside of a case using one of those swiftech products?

Or do you want the rad mounted vertically (out in the open) for better airflow?

I wanted to be able to position it however I wanted. On my own rig my plan was to either put it horizontally on top of the system (like the Koolance Exos) or to mount it in the back with a Radbox type device as you've described. For this rig I wanted to be able to aim the exhaust air. It sits on top for now because that's just where it ended up. I have to say that with open air on both sides it seems very effective.

 

[alfa147x]

It would have zero problems keeping your E8400 cool. Unfortunately SVC sold out of their clearance deals so good luck scoring this kind of pricing.

Ah that's good to know, but I think the fan atm is doing just fine. Might look into it later. Thanks!

 

[cbn]

I wanted to be able to position it however I wanted. On my own rig my plan was to either put it horizontally on top of the system (like the Koolance Exos) or to mount it in the back with a Radbox type device as you've described. For this rig I wanted to be able to aim the exhaust air. It sits on top for now because that's just where it ended up. I have to say that with open air on both sides it seems very effective.

Good idea. I wonder what the difference in temps would be?

 

[Gillbot]

Thanks for the tip. I had run my fingers through the opening and it didn't feel that sharp, but next time I get in there I'll line it with electrical tape.

same thing I did, it didn't feel sharp until it was too late. on the next build I just put electrical tape all the way around to be sure.