Watercooling my main system

[pHaestus]

I'm finishing up my watercooled system over what remains of the holiday and thought I'd show you guys a couple of kinda cool things I've done so far. First up is the filling and bleeding of the system. A reservoir makes it simple to fill a loop and bleed it of air in a minute or two. But having a res doesn't necessarily make draining the system any easier. To deal with that, I installed a drain line that runs from this Dangerden reservoir down to the rear bottom of my external radiator box.

http://phaestus.procooling.com/radbox/drain.jpg

http://phaestus.procooling.com/radbox/bleedline.jpg

Just put a pan underneath and open up the drain and it empties. Some water will remain in the radiator but this makes it super easy to change out wbs in the main system. It's a lot like changing the oil. If I didn't have kids I would have used a ball valve but I KNOW better.

The other problem I initially ran into was a lot of vibrational noise from the Stealth fans on my radiator. This was amplified by the aluminum box I am using. To deal with this problem, I make a gasket out of neoprene to go between the fans and the radiator and then mounted the fans by tying them onto the radiator using elastic from the wife's sewing room. The Stealths are now free to vibrate as much as they want and it's decoupled from the rad and the box.

http://phaestus.procooling.com/radbox/neoprene_rad.jpg

I have some PSU soldering to do and some more holes to cut in my PC-50. Hopefully this project will be done in the next day or two though and I'll post before and after pics.

[DryFire]

stealth fans as in vantec stealths? Those arn't really quiet IMO. Nexus real silent fans woudl be much quieter if that your goal (with such a massive rad you should still be ok).

[scooterfl]

looks good so far...any more progress?

ps-dont forget to turn your FAH back on when done :)

[mashie]

That is a nice radiator, what brand / model is it?

[pHaestus]

HWLabs one pass Black Ice Pro 3

[pHaestus]

I made some good progress so far today. First of all I sorted out my hose routing and reservoir mounting issues. I wanted to make sure I get the most advantage out of the 1 pass rad by using the shortest and straightest tubing runs possible. I also wanted to make sure I could fill the system easily without unbolting the two boxes.

http://phaestus.procooling.com/radbox/testfit.jpg

A few people have asked about the mounting of the BI Pro3; here's a picture of the insides of the box:

http://phaestus.procooling.com/radbox/innards.jpg

I have a LOT of filing to do now :(
And a PSU to rewire for 5.25" bay mounting. I'm tempted to just hang the damn thing out the back to be done today (lol)

[Cranky]

nice work so far P.

[pHaestus]

bah the Sparkle PSU apparently is dead now. Time for a replacement.

[KnightElite]

Looking good pH. Sorry I haven't checked in for quite a while, I've been busy with other stuff. I should head over and do some casemodding with you sometime ;).

[skane]

I just installed one of those DD reservoirs. Noticed one design glitch --- the fill hole doesn't allow full bleeding of the res. so there's always a fairly large air pocket. If the res. is installed flat (as intended), there's a contiuous splashing / gurgling sound. I'm running mine at an angle with the fill hole side tilted up to minimize noise. Will probably switch back to a small PVC res. or T line later.

[Sc0rian]

bah, psu die, gay:(


Look's well sweet tho, Nice job so far

- S

[HammerSandwich]

Noticed one design glitch --- the fill hole doesn't allow full bleeding of the res. so there's always a fairly large air pocket.
Modify it as Swiftech does (http://forums.procooling.com/vbb/showpost.php?p=128554&postcount=265).

[pHaestus]

Who says I didn't?

[HammerSandwich]

I'm pretty sure skane had not.

[pHaestus]

http://phaestus.procooling.com/radbox/finished1.jpg
http://phaestus.procooling.com/radbox/finished2.jpg
http://phaestus.procooling.com/radbox/finished3.jpg
http://phaestus.procooling.com/radbox/finished4.jpg
http://phaestus.procooling.com/radbox/finished5.jpg

I have a Barton mobile running at 2500MHz and 1.825V and whilst running Prime95, the Asus diode reading is at 35C with the pump and all fans PWMed to 25%. At 100% power the CPU is at 30C. That room is 18C. For reference CPU temperatures were approximately 25C higher at 2200MHz using an Alpha PAL8045 and an 80mm Panaflo M1A, and this system is a lot quieter than that box was. At 25% PWM speed the hdds are a lot more noisy than anything else. It's time to shuffle all the hdds to a fileserver in a different room I think. Note now neat the wiring is with the way I mounted the hdds too. Nice and clean.

[HammerSandwich]

Nice work, Phaestus. But why is the radbox wider than the PC-50?

[pHaestus]

Because I used a PC60 faceplate to make the front of the radbox, and it's a bit wider than the PC50.

[pHaestus]

Yea in April or so. Should be easy to drop it in. No $$ at the moment for that upgrade

[HammerSandwich]

Because I used a PC60 faceplate to make the front of the radbox, and it's a bit wider than the PC50.
Weird - they're both specced at 210mm.

[pHaestus]

Oh btw the MX4 LCD I was using to control pump and fans decided that it would be fun to turn off all the fans while the system was running. I couldn't get them to come back on no matter what. Of course I hadn't put a hose clamp on the outlet of the Storm G5 either so when the water reached 40C it dripped onto my 6600GT. I DID notice last night instead of this am so I don't think any permanent damage was done. I have to rig up a different setup for fan power/control now though. I'll probably just put them on a cheapo potentiometer/LM317 controller I have lying around the house tonight.

[MaxxxRacer]

that sucks man. I had a somewhat similar experience after i stopped using my criticool powerplant (it killed my pc). I had the pump (WMD-20RLT) setup so i had to plug it manually each time i turned the comp on. Well i forgot to do so... 10 minutes after i power up i get a alarm on mbm5 that my pc was at 60C. i thought it was a joke or an error... well it wasnt. i quickly realized the pump wasnt plugge in. so i dash under my desk and plug it in.. let me tell you when tygon is around 50+C it doenst do so well.. As the pump powered up the fittings at the TDX started spraying water everywhere due to the tubing being softened. Luckily nothing was killed though..

[dogbait]

Reading all these stories about Tygon and hose barbs makes me glad I've stubbornly stuck with clear PVC and JG Speedfits throughout the system (though with two pumps now plumbed it's becoming a pita to manage). Although, MaxxRacer, did you have wormdrive hose clamps on your RDX? I wouldn't have thought any water would squeeze past those...

[MaxxxRacer]

I had those horrible plastic clamps that DD sells. they work well enough for most things, but when it really comes to leaks they cant hanle it. I have since switched over to high grade zip ties. They are as strong if not stronger than the worm drives, with absolute zero chance of leaks even if the tygon is about to boil off.

[mashie]

HWLabs one pass Black Ice Pro 3
It seems they made it to massproduction in the end (http://www.hwlabs.com/products/blackicepro3xf.htm).

[Marci]

Oh btw the MX4 LCD I was using to control pump and fans decided that it would be fun to turn off all the fans while the system was running. I couldn't get them to come back on no matter what. Of course I hadn't put a hose clamp on the outlet of the Storm G5 either so when the water reached 40C it dripped onto my 6600GT. I DID notice last night instead of this am so I don't think any permanent damage was done. I have to rig up a different setup for fan power/control now though. I'll probably just put them on a cheapo potentiometer/LM317 controller I have lying around the house tonight

Heh - had same issue yesterday. Turned on TEC PSU, got sidetracked scratching my ass or picking my nose or summat and hadn't switched PC on.... tubing had obviously gotten a touch "warm" to say the least. Soon as I turned rig on, and therefore the MCP600, I found a 2ft jet of water blasting the side of my leg as the whole rig emptied itself everywhere! And that was 7/16" Masterkleer on DD HiFlow fittings... just switched it all off and it's sat beside me now, drip drying.

Check ampage consumption of fans and pumps - probably popped one of the GPOs on the MX4 depending how you've got it wired...

[ricecrispi]

Funniest mishap I ever heard in Wcing. Sounds like something out of a movie or SNL skit.

I use zip ties but i wonder if the same thing could happen to me?

Marci, how good is mustakleer tubing? Seen some for sale and was wondering about the quality. Even though I got a box of tygon with 40 odd feet left....

[Marci]

S'absolutely peachy - no probs at all with it here...