Just rebuilt my rig (lots of pics)
 

After about ten months of running the same nasty old water, i thought it was time for a complete overhaul. I just cleaned everything out and rebuilt my baybus from scratch (those old cold solders didn't cut it anymore). I can't get any legit temps, since my mobo has trouble reading the diode on my T-Bred, so i'm not going overboard on the oc as of now. When i get a good thermistor set up, i can probably go much higher. It's not evident in the pictures, but i replaced the orange disk activity LED with a red one, looks alot nicer.

I have a 2 drive fibre channel raid setup with a Qlogic QLA2100 controller & T-Cards from www.sca40.com.

T-Bred Athlon XP 2000+ (1.67 @ 1.82)
Epox 8K3A+
768mb pc3200
Ati Radeon 9700pro
260gb storage (120gb WD1200jb, 100gb fibre channel raid, 40gb deathstar)
SBLive! 1024
Generic firewire card
Netgear NIC
Lite-On 48x12x48x CD-RW
Lite-On 16x DVD-ROM

WC-setup:

Alu topped D-Tek TC-4 w/ 1/2" barbs
Black Ice extreme (blah, should've gotten a chevette)
Some crazy 120mm delta, screams at 7v
Hydor L30
1/2" Clearflex 60 thickwall
Custom air-trap from black ABS plastic


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I loomed all the power cables and spliced the IDE's for a cleaner look.

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Two seagate 50gb drives

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The cable is for the fibre channel. 3ft length for $60, ouch!

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Second hookup is for the pump

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almost more heatshrink than wire

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Duct-tape shroud. This is the only place i'm not really happy. I'll probably go in and replace the 90 with a swept copper fitting.

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res/airtrap, i've been meaning to wipe that clean with some mineral spirits

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Aftermarket HD mount, if you're sharp, you'll notice the floppy drive was jacked from some HP comp :)

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The stock fan on the 9700 was very crappy, so i dug a 50mm out of my drawer and screwed it on.

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I wanted to loom the ATX cable, but alas, fry's didn't have the right size in stock

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I don't have a printer, but i have a PS2 controller :D (yes, it works)

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you can't see it, but the lights are on! I swear!

If you want to see the full resolution pictures, click here

Nice work Mate!!

Really like it. You should uv dye it and get a uv light ;)

thanks man, i think i'm gonna stay away from the uv dye and the light ;). i like to keep it clean and "purpose oriented" if you know what i mean.
there is a reason i haven't put a window on my computer. it was cool back in the day. but now when everybody and their brother has one, it's kind of passé imo.

i really want some feedback on my comp, so don't be afraid of giving constructive crticism. i'm open for any suggestions.

Looks really good and clean!!! Except one thing I see.....that 90 degreeon the outlet of you aqua pump... it will restrict flow but I dont think to much....

Hejsan!
Goodlooking, clean installation. Mmmm...
Constructive critisism:
Move Your pump back into the case, away from the rad/fan (OK, it might bump into Your expansion card), and You will get a more gentle slope of the tube from the pump outlet, and You might rid Yourself of the 90 degree elbow.
I also tried a vertical PVC-tube for air trap a couple of months, but it din´t bleed my system. I guess it has to do with the waters velocity *down* the tube being greater than the airs velocity *up* through the water. In a horizontal air trap there will be very little vertical movement in the water, easing the airs way up to the surface. I searched the forum for more theories on air traps, but couldn´t confirm my BS.
Anyway, nice installation!
regards
Mikael S.

edit: corrected bad spellings

You could try to cut away the fan grills. They only produce noise.

Reverse the radiator/fan orientation?
 

I am guessing from the pics that your radiator fan exhausts air from inside the case to the outside. One thing that could perhaps lower temps a few C would be to reverse that. You could leave the radiator in the same orientation, (for the hoses) but take the fan and put it in "front" of the radiator instead of "behind" it the way it is now.

It would be a bitch having to redo your "tape shroud" :) on the other side and all, but then you would be cooling the radiator with ambient temp air instead of the case-warmed air. It would warm the case up a little, but drop the baseline of your delta-t on your processor, lowering its temp I think. Nice work though, I agree with your function over form attitude about the windows and junk. I like stuff to look good, but making the computer into a Ferris Wheel or Vegas casino blinky-blink is a little overboard I think these days. I dig the nickname for your Deskstar too..."deathstar," I like that. The fibre channel thing is different too. I've got a Abit IC7-MAX with SATA, but I'm still in the dark ages with Ultra-160 SCSI 10K drives, (not Deathstar...Ultrastar) because I bought'em two years ago, and I'm still financially broke from the experience!

It looks to me like the fan is oriented so its pulling air into the case. In the third pic I can see a grayish circle in the center of the fan, looks like the side it pushes air through. What about it jag, whos right? Thanks for the pics btw. Like the name says, " anti-bling" the duct tape doesnt bother me (its all about performance) but lose the elbow after the pump! Im going to put some pics of my case up today so you can make fun of mine later.

jag, nicely done case there. Looks like the same parts I'm collecting to assembly my water-cooling project. But I've been wondering, how much space is there between the top of the power supply and the top of the case? I was thinking of mounting a radiator up there, but having the flow run perpendicular to the width of the case (from side panel to side panel). None of the sites I've checked seems to have this information... hate to buy a radiator and find out it won't fit.. :mad: