[Angry_Steel]

Where to pick up at.....

First, more pics in the days to come, just havent been taking any.

After days and days of trial and error on the watercooling end of this, I ended up making a lot of changes.

1. I removed both of the Swissflow meters from the loops. Just couldnt seem to get them working properly. One of them would put out a rpm of 17xx, and the other seemed to put out around the right rpm at 6xxx, but both of them acted super flaky when reading them in the bios (Flashing between 0-XXXX, not showing at all, fluctuation of 1xxx) Whether or not I have faulty meters or all of the problems are user errors, I dont know and Im fed up with them.

2. Replaced the intake lines for both pumps with 1/2" x 3/4" OD tygon, as I seemed to be getting some flattening with the 1/2" x 11/16" OD.

3. Removed the fixed position "Distribution Panel" with the quick disconnects....bad idea, it just added a lot of extra tubing due to its location. Instead the disconnects are now just free floating and I saved about 2ft of tubing per a loop.

4. Both D5 pumps are running at 5x speed. They are actually Silent at 5x. At 4x you start getting a noticeable whine (noticeable to me) and at anything lower than that its very noisy. This is wierd as it goes against everything Ive read in reviews saying that it is quietest at its lower levels.

5. Leak testing was fun... I never had any problems with the blocks, I spent extra time with both of them in tightening down the barbs (No PTFE) and making sure the clamps were tight. Leaks were a pain in the ass with the swissflows, and the old filters, both of which are now removed. As mentioned earlier, the inline filters I have now are about 1/10th of the size, sealed with o-rings and do a good job at catching junk without noticeably affecting flowrate too much.

6. All the connectors in the loops are 12mm ID (Actual) and 16mm OD black ABS plastic fittings. They seem to work much better than the standard crap you can buy from most computer shops. The tygon fits really snug and I doubt there is much restriction. No 90's anywhere in the loops.

Ok, so this thing has been running for about a week and a half now stable (Knock on wood) but that was achieved by no easy means. (Rant Coming)

Manufacturer woes:

Asus has been my manufacturer of choice for as long as I can remember. No more. When their stuff works, it works great, but when you need some kind of technical support, you would be better off wasting your time writing the Pope.
Im pretty damn knowledgable about doing things myself, Im 37 and Ive been tinkering with computers since my dad brought home a M6800 home from Motorola and built a table top system. So when I ask for technical support, there is usually something wrong. With my A7N8X-Dlx system, I just battered my way through all of the bugs, destroyed bios's, flaky drivers and data corruption, and ended up with one of the most rock solid systems Ive ever owned. With my current build it has been a different story.

I built this system around the Nforce 4 A8N-Sli Deluxe, and purchased a 6800 Ultra to go along with it. When I got around to opening the M/B for the first time it was missing the I/0 Shield. Ok..No big deal I thought, Ill just get a new one from the distributor, they list them for sale. (Im not big on going through RMA's, etc, Id rather just buy something if its just a couple of dollars) So I ordered a replacement and volla! Its the wrong one. So I spent the next 2 weeks figuring out that the distributor is just waiting for RMA's to come back in, and pilfering the I/0 shields to re-sell. Ok enough of that. I contact ASUS (UK) as they are the closest to me here in Spain with a email explaining my problem, and that I would like a I/0 Shield for my $160 motherboard. The reply was...

Dear costumer, thank you for contacting asus.
We appreciate that you share your complaint with us.
From the moment you bought an Asus product, you have one week to change it if you find something wrong. In your case, a missed part.
It's not common to sell this parts, because they came as part of the motherboard. The fact that this parts are not integrated in the motherboard, it's just a matter of space. But they actually are.
If the shop sold you this part, they toke it from another motherboard, because Asus do not sell motherboards parts separetelly.
We sugest you to reclaim the shop the missed part, but the fact is that it depends on them, as you shoulded reclaim this the week you bought it.
Hope they help you solve this issue.

Best regards,

Asus Ibérica.

My reply was less than civil as I have never heard anything about this 1 week crap, and here they are telling me to go deal with the distributor again.... the next reply to that was:

We apologize for the inconvenience. Hope you understand that our stock depends on our official distribution channel, which means the computer shops and distributors. Please, try to contact them to see if they can get you this missed part.
What we explained to you is the description of a standard process we use for years and nobody complains about it. Even the costumers are happy with the service we provide.
Hope this issue with the computer shop does not change the way you think about our brand.
If you have any question or need help with anything regarding our products, always under our standard processes, we are going to be more than happy to assist you.
Again, thank you for contacting Asus.

Best regards,

Asus Ibérica.

Alrighty then....gave the distributor one more go....and they told me to just go ahead and RMA the whole Motherboard. Yea....Ok, Im going to RMA the whole thing for a 5 cent I/0 shield and wait for 2months..... I figured ok, Ill just call ASUS in the USA as they might have a better concept of what Customer Service is. So I called them, got a nice girl who listened to my story, told me that what the guy wrote above is retarded, asked for m/b model and shipping address, and my new shiny I/O shield is on its way! Finally.... So 10 days later, my package arrives and I get a.....something that does not fit on my motherboard....again.... Back on the phone to Asus USA. Explained everything again to another nice girl, She took down all the information, M/B model, etc and made a note to make sure I got the right one this time. Ok, cool.....Fast forward 10 days later. Wrong I/0 shield....again. At least this time its closer, so I break out the nibbler's and try it out. Unfortunately, the thing is curved so badly that when you try to get the M/B in, you would need a clamp to hold it in while you screwed it down. Enough is enough...so now having had enough of the stress, I am running my first computer without an I/0 shield.

Stay tuned for part 2 of the great ASUS saga.....