[airspirit]

Check the FS/FT forum. FRAG has a Lytron rad for sale ($60 compared to twice that in heatercores) similar to the one I'm using. It may be an option, though if you are running the four rads in parallel that will give you much better flow than that one Lytron. If you are running them in series like in your diagrams, you very well may want to consider the one large radiator, because four HCs in series will be a massive flow killer. If you stick with the heatercores, you MUST increase the overall volume of your internal piping and run them in parallel. This also allows for a larger flow to your PC for better cooling. If you run them all in series you will have to use some sort of bypass mechanism to prevent your flow from dropping to unusable levels.

Also on this note, consider having two parallel paths for coolant, one going to the CPU, and one going to the GPU/NB. This will prevent the CPU block from becoming a chokepoint, further killing flow. I have a feeling you'll get better temps that way, though it does involve more hosing in your ATX case. Put the "Y" inside of your ATX case, though, to prevent the split from blocking air flow in your cooling chest.

One thing to note with that case you're looking at is that it isn't that great for air flow. You'll probably want to consider windowing it somewhere for extra air flow with a low volume 120mm fan if there are going to be any aircooled parts in your system (like the NB) and you want to keep it quiet. I can live with 45C in my case because my system arrangement is buried in heatsinks ... can you?

It looks, however, like you are going completely watercooled, so that may not be an issue for you. You will still, though, want to consider two 80mm Panaflo "L" fans @7V in windows on the PSU side to flow air across your mosfets and such on the mobo. Just a thought for you.

The box itself is a very sound idea. As long as you can get a tight seal around the cores (the is where the Lytron shines since it comes with mounting hardware), the box serves as a shroud and makes things really nice. Again, I'd recommend Panaflo "L" fans (120mm) for the cooling box. At 7V, they should be virtually inaudible. You'll want to build a rheobus to control your fan speeds. With 6x 120mm, you will get good flow from 5V-12V. It allows you to crank up the power like you were talking about.

Since the case you are looking at comes with a 300W Enlight PSU, you could theoretically mount that in the lower box, hack the 80mm fan out of it and mount one of your 120mm fans on it for another exhaust. This PSU could be used to power the entire fan array in the bottom. Just something to think about.

Another word of caution: that case is VERY tight. It allows up to 3X Optical drives and only 2X HDD/Floppy drives. If you are using more than 2 HDD and don't mind the lack of a floppy, you'll have to pick up a rack for one of your 5" slots. You'll also want to look again at how you'll string the hosing into your case. It looks like you're going to try to punch in from the bottom, but I'd caution against that for ease of maintenance. Try this instead: have barbs extending from the back of the cooling case. From these, extend hose equipped with quick-disconnects toward the ATX case, and have it enter in through the back. You can use 2X PCI slots if you don't need them (this is what I did), or you can chop the case above the PCI slots if you need them all. If they are stacked like that with entry through the bottom of the ATX case, maintenance will be a bitch.

You do know that quick disconnects are an absolute bastard for flow if they are auto-shutoff, right? You may want to consider ball valves and non-shutoff disconnects. You'll lose a small amount of coolant, but since it is outside the case, it can be controlled. There is a better way to get around this, though, which I quickly discovered, and this leads to the last point:

How are you going to trap air? You may want to consider building in an airtrap/res. Otherwise, you will have a very difficult time filling/draining/bleeding your system. An elegant approach would be to build in a clear PVC res/trap in the cooling case that can be filled through a screw-on top and would drain directly into the pump inputs (prevents hose collapse in high resistance systems). Also be ready with an easy method to drain it if necessary.

The reason for this is that it eliminates the need for shutoff disconnects. If you can drain your system "safe" (it won't bleed all over the place) in less than a minute, why worry about shutoffs? You could equip two inline ball valves in the ATX case to isolate that system and two NON-SHUTOFF disconnects between the two boxes. When you want to do maintenance you just open the drain valve until it doesn't drip and re-close it. Close the valves in your case, undo the disconnects, and move the case to a safe location. If you need to remove cooling hardware in your case, any coolant left in it will remain in it and won't leak on your components.

With all that said, you can do this the way you've originally described if you're smart about it and have it completely mapped from the beginning. I'm just trying to point out ways you MAY be able to improve it. I'm just coming from the hurdles I faced when designing my system, but then again, I wasn't trying to cram it all into such a small space either.