Case Mod - In Progress HP Blackbird 002

Long time between updates my friend but well worth it, lovin the Blackbird.

 

Was very busy at work, but having a bit more free time now. Will finish it pretty quickly, next couple of weeks.

Just need to get those fittings.....

 

I can't criticize your workmanship, because it's truly stellar. That being said, I'm a little concerned about your cooling loop. You'll have a pair of processors and a 4870x2 on a 240 rad, right? That's a whole lot of heat to pull out of the loop. Do you have any way test whether or not you'll be cooling limited before final assembly?

 

I have had this running on this rad before, and it did a fine job of cooling down the processors.

Much better than the stock aircooling could anyway, even in the heat of Melbourne in the summer. Thanx for your inout though, appreciated.

 

Excellent news! I'll just sit back and look forward to updates then!

 

looks good . like the black tubing looks good

 

Thanx Guys,
Will keep ya'll posted

 

That tubing screaming "TYGON R3400" every few inches is kinda distracting... maybe run over it with some rubbing alcohol to make it "unbranded"... just a suggestion...

Looking good otherwise!

 

@ Blackflag: Thanx Mate, and yes, I will clean it off once the tubing is trimmed down to proper length, and I have the fittings on

 

Hello Guys,
Just a short update - I have refitted the SAS drive-cage once again this weekend, with all 5 SAS drives (for now) displayed in all their glory - I am planning 8 drives for ultimate speed and reliability, as well as storage-space.

Here's a shot of the cage fitted, I will post another one from the rear at a later point in time:



and an angled one.....



Also note to the left of the drive-cage the standard (long) PCI-Card support bracket, often found in high-end servers, behind this support there is a decent 120mm fan providing airflow accross the drives, as well as cooling the cards in the "PCI-chamber"

For those that own Blackbirds, they know that there are unique thermal-zones, and the PCI zone is seperated by ducts from the top- and PSU zones. I will retain the zone-structure for this project, it works well, and will add to the overall clean look of the project.

Here's another pic of the pci-support mechanism...and you can make out the fan behind too in this shot....



Anyway, had to make a support bracket for the SAS Raid card, as it is very heavy towards the rear due to 2x backup support batteries for the batter write cache module.....



Here you can see the bracket fitted, and the 2 batteries I am on about....



Here's another shot.....



Here's the fron-half of the SAS card, with some memory-sinks I have fitted to cool down the CPU and controller chips....



and here's the card, exposed in all it's glory - it's a monster, really....



Everything will fit together like this....



and, finally, a shot from underneath.....



Enjoy it for now, feedback as always appreciated

 

Very elegant solution for supporting the card. I am loving this.

My only issue is with the tubing, whenever I see tygon tubing I just want to scrub off the writing

 

Thanx Mate.

Once I have the fittings, and trim down the tubing, I will clean it of any markings/branding et all

 

Ok, a last update before the weekend's out.

I have properly secured the radiator, and fitted 2x 25mm fans to see how everything fits together.....here's a shot showing the front fan, clearing the CPU waterblock retention bracket by approximately 1mm.....I will anyway make my own retention brackets, these stockies look totally crap.



And here's a shot showing the rear fan, and the small piece I have to cutout from the fan-body to get the ATX and 4-pin connectors to fit - I can probably get them in, but will prefer to have an easier fit, so I will remove a small piece of the fan-body.

Close fit, as I have said.....



Here's another upside-down shot of the rad/fan fitment - looking rather nice....



Here's one, showing the 2x onboard fan-headers, which will make cable-run easy and clean....nice....



And here's a last one, right way up......I will get two decent fans to use, these one's shown here are for measuring purposes only....

 

Just lovely

 

A set of slim (20mm) Yate loons or some of those slim scythe slip streams would go nicely in there. The only problem with both is the lack of static pressure.

Depending on how much you have to cut out of the standard fan, surely the fan blade is going to his the ATX connector, unless its not as close as I thin

 

That is the biggest SAS card I have ever seen lol, even the support bracket you made for it looks beautiful. Everything it looking great, a real tight fit .

 

Hey Guys,
Thanx for the replies

@ Matticus - the connector will be clearing the blade by at least 5-7mm, the photos are a bit deceptive.

Anyway, been playing with the fans a bit, and I have a very good solution to the problem - I will put the fans in a push configuration, ontop of the rad - you see, due to the shape of the case, the top is not horizontal, and when I made the fan-brackets, I had to built in a "tilt-angle" to get the fans horizontal.

Now, there's a gap between the top of the radiator, and the roof of the case, and if I drop the brackets by 15mm, the 25mm fans fit - and, best part, there is a 10mm clearance between the bottom of the radiator, and top of the otherboard then, and all cables fit very well, plus, the end result is a much sleeker appearance.

Neat. I will fab new brackets, and then have a very nice rad-grill lazer-cut to go where the fans are currently located.

So I could use a few Scythe S-Flex F's after all, they do a pretty decent job, and nice and quiet to boot....

Should look pretty decent.

 

I have fired her up last evening, and I can say the 240mm Feser radiator is doing a great job! I had OCCT Linpack running for a few hours, and none of the 8 cores went over 44 deg C, while the GPU temperature increased from 28 to 34 deg C, testament that the CPUs are dumping a fair bit of heat in the water, but the system is doing a great job of maintaining equilibrium.....


So yes, to prove a point to all guys over at certain forums who told me you cannot cool all this hardware with a single 240mm rad......it does a very, very good job. You can throw anything at this system, the 2x CPUs, as well as the HD4870X2 (dual-GPU) stays cool and calm. Will run a few hours of 3dMark Vantage , but doubt it will make a ding in the temps.

Ah well, I'm pretty happy, now I neat to tidy the tubing - still need to get some Bitspower fittings, but at least the cabling on the non-motherboard side is all neat, and ready to go. Will post pics later.

 

Quick, someone send this to Rahul Sood.

http://www.rahulsood.com/

If you're lucky, he might help you out with the fittings you needed.



A+++++++ case regardless, amazing build. +rep

 

@ Docodine: The blokes over there are not interested in even sponsoring me with a plastic front-button panel, and a few pci-clips at the back.

Tried my best a while back, but generally got the run-around.

I guess they are to big now for us modders, especially now they're part of HP.

edit: I may be considering doing a different approach to the tubing, I may end up finally using all the 15mm dia x 2m lengths, and probably 50x elbow-bends I have. Will still think about this "rigid" approach I have wrt the tubing - I have a decent idea, but need 1 or 2 things before I can try it out.

Will keep you guys posted.