Case Mod - In Progress Watercooling By rjkoneill

well well well

look what we have here

perspex window for the roof of my case
this takes the fan numbers down by two. a really nicely finished product in my opinion, very impressed.










as luck would have it my package from Charles H [murdermod] arrived today
it contains the template and instructions on how to mark out the tubing holes for my luminous panel








and here are the bits i am gathering for when i make finishing touches

white nano fluid
it IS the best. discussion over.



we wont go into what it looks like


a new 1366 socket, just because every little detail counts, now my socket matches my black nickel watercooling fittings

BLING

BLING

 

changes to the build

installed my lovely new 980X cpu, looking at a Xeon 5650 too

still waiting for my parts from murdermod but am expecting some progress pretty soon according to Charles H. Its only been 6 months since i ordered...

removed the troublesome 4890 crossfire and all of the headaches that went alongside them
added a lovely new Radeon 5870. Nickel plated EK of course


the nanofluid spent around 24 hours in suspension looking lovely and white...
before it turned a cloudy/clear/bluey type colour. far from ideal but it has had a 4-5'C temp drop across all 6 cores which is just what i needed


I had a creative X-Fi Fatal1ty titanium sound card for about a week, the shoddy driver support and clunky interface meant that it had to go. i can honestly say that i have never owned such a horrible piece of hardware.
It has been replaced with the frankly amazing Asus Xonar D2X PCI-E Sound Card.
This card is infinatly better and the sound quality is brilliant both in game and in music. plus it looks pretty good too.


heres where I'm at now

just waiting on the final few pieces

 

i have been eyeing up new motherboards, but cant really justify a new board at all. there simply isnt anything worth bothering with at the moment. all the colour schemes are boring.

everything is red and black or blue and black

my murdermod stuff STILL hasnt arrived.
its only been since January when i ordered it. the latest news is that the light panel is nearly ready but my res holders are not even on the to do list.

im getting a little impatient.

in other news, i have decided i want to achieve two things for when the panel arrives [if that EVER happens]

1. i want to tone down noise even more, this means getting rid of fans and pumps.
2. i want to tidy up the tubing route and the whole system in general.

so i have set about designing the loop again. i am going to remove the double thermochill and run the whole rig off the Quad radiator. the entire rig will run off the four fans on this radiator and the one in the psu.

the rig has a 980X cpu and a single GPU, so it now produces much less heat than it did.

the fans in the roof are being replaced by the tinted roof window and the rear fans will be stripped out.
i am thinking of getting a blank rear panel, but going by murdermod's current production rate that may happen in around 2012

either way i am cutting down half the tubing from the front of the case by installing a single pump.
my two DDC pumps are very good but i am a sucker for anything bitspower make.
so i got this imported from the states









i have covered the cable with the MDPC braid and put a black molex connector on the pump instead of the nasty white one.

my tj07 is going to be half empty at this rate.

will keep you posted with updates when/if my panel ever arrives

 

ive gone and done it...

sick and tired of the waiting for the luminous panel, I had to get some enthusiasm for my system back

seeing the countless parts scattered around my room waiting to be installed i have finally cracked...

Crossfire: Round 2


I am not going all out on this yet. after the catastrophic failure that was my 4890 crossfire i have decided to take the 'suck it and see' approach.
i miss having two graphics cards, however the poor performance and shambolic driver support for my 4890s meant that i couldnt keep them.
i spend a lot of my day fixing other peoples problems so i like my own system to 'just work'. so this 5870 can stay on air cooling for the time being.
if i decide that i am happy with it then it will get a lovely acetal&nickel treat from EK waterblocks. if i see poor performance and problems then its going.

also, i plan on getting a revo drive. if i have crossfire 5870 cards then the double slot backplates will cover the only available slot for my sound card to go in.
weighing up the pros and cons at the moment. the single 5870 has served me well so the second has its work cut out.

also, i have underclocked my 980X @ 3GHz. i know this may sound stupid but my daft attempts at 5.5GHz benchmark runs have left the chip very unstable
at anything above stock. i am looking at Xeons at the moment to replace it but having never tried undervolting etc i have to say, i am very impressed.

running @ 3GHz which speedsteps down to 1.6GHz using 0.91v on full load.
memory at 2000MHz 8-7-7-20 1T

never goes above 40'c and performs on par with a 4GHz nehalem pulling much less from the wall.

 

Wait wut..

You can buy replacement CPU sockets these days?

 

That top window cut looks pretty cool, I can't wait to see it installed. Great attention to detail with the replacement CPU socket as well BTW . It's looking great, this really is a very clean mod.

 

the cpu socket is from a gigabyte X58A UD3R

 

after some very saddening news from Murdermod that i wont be getting my light panel any time soon, I have decided to go ahead with my rebuild.
the panel can go in when it arrives. if it arrives

I would like to thank my sponsor...



Peroni, without which this build would not be possible

out to my shed, where dust reigns supreme!


taking the system apart.



mess


480 epicness


rock solid, and indeed, heart touching






picture does not do this justice.




more mess


refreshments - Peroni #2


my fantastic new D5 [pump of champions]






my tinted top panel that didnt fit. the supplier of this item is very much in my bad books. I had to sand it down to fit.






Meg was not impressed


first ubing route, wasnt too happy with this layout


the big white tube going up to the top looks poor and i need to sort it






"Goodbye EK Multioption Res 250 Version 1"


"Oh Hello EK Multioption Res 250 Version 2"










Pump in its place


coming together after lots of swearing and NathWraith's incessant pestering

 

That is one beast of a machine!

How does your TJ07 cope with dust? I find mine attracts dust very quickly and will need a clean after about 3 weeks.

 

You did a great job fixing up the tubing, looks great. I also really like your choice of coolant, the murky white compliments the mod perfectly.

 

its not too bad, i tend to keep a plastic bag over the top of it whilst it is not in use i know its anal but it saves the hassle of stripping it down and cleaning loads

the tubing is much better and i am really happy with it.
two problems i have noticed this week however.

1. my motherboard is dying a slow and painful death on me.
this is a massive pain as it means stripping down the system again


2. after reversing the flow on the system, i was gettign high temps all of a sudden. at first i put this down to the overclcoked fermi card running overvolted at 920mhz

problem is i didnt switch my cpu block round, meaning the inbound flow was going into the outlet of the block. epic failure on my part admittedly.

hopefully should be able to get it sorted out this weekend

 

new toys

before...


after...

 

Looking great
Every single detail is perfect, but I wouldn't install the Gigabyte motherboard,
colours of the slots are for 8-years old children, it looks just funny for me

 

It's hard to comment on this mod. It keeps changing too fast. The jizznatch coolant is a nice touch. It will be interesting to see how it handles bacteria/depositing/etc.

 

reviewing my work i must admit my photography is rather fail.
i am a computer tech and not a photographer. i wouldnt know how to work a good camera if my life depended on it.

my current shots are taken with a Sony DSC-W110 which is a very basic point and shoot but serves me well.

i have been reading a few beginners photography forums recently and gained the following knowledge:

1. my camera sucks
2. i need a tripod
3. still images should be taken using a timer

so accounting for all of these three facts i have done my best to make the photography in this update at least half decent.

i took on board the advice in points 2 and 3 and got a tripod and sorted the timer out. the results are much better. my camera still sucks.

onwards with the updates.

some more in depth shots of the fantastic Gigabyte UD7 with EK Nickel Plexi full cover blocks.







then the front of my case will be filled with these vented bezels from Lian Li, they have dust filters in them but i may remove them.





behind the vented bezels will be my dual radiator. I wanted more active cooling in the loop and this will be ran in series after the Quad thermochill to keep that fermi under control. the rad will be mounted in the front using the lian li mounting kit that i had from an old build and a white P clip to keep things nice and tidy





then there is this beautiful piece of work. which will be stealth mounted to the board using the coolit backplate and m3 hex screws from earlier on in the build.



i am going to be upgrading my memory to a higher performance part and did want to run a Mips memory cooler. i emailled them directly asking for their dominator cooler with a nickel backplate and a plexi top. but they said that they weren't willing to work with plexi, so that idea has to be scrapped. i may go for some nickel plated extended dominator fins to match all the shiny blocks.

at the moment i am stuck between blue coolant and clear coolant. give your opinions on this if you feel you can input

my partner in crime NathWraith has been fantastic in ordering me my parts. we have some clear tygon tubing on its way to us too which i will be modding by removing the tygon logos. this will provide superior flexability as well as preventing bacterial growth. should be here next week meaning i will be able to get started on what will be the final rebuild of this system.

 

Those EK mobo blocks look a ton better then the stock ones.

 

All those block look hot.

 

This looks awesome!

Sub'd!

 

hi guys, small update here

been doing a bit of preperation for the switcharound on my case.
I'm beginning to accept that the murdermod panel is never goign to materialise.
their website hasnt changed for ages so im just going to leave it off the build.

this rebuild will be the last change to the TJ07 before I start looking at another project.

first of all, I have spent the last week braiding stuff up again to match the new board/colour schemes.

still considering rebraiding everything as the heatshrinks from the last effort look a little poor.



the fans i will be using throughout the case have been braided too.
Xigmatek XLF Blueline 120mm.



there will be a total of six fans in the case plus the psu fan which is quiet anyway. still considering which fan controller to go for.

my custom pieces arrived within the week, very impressed with the quality, hope they fit better than the custom top window.

fanless rear panel, powdercoated satin black


plain midplate pwdercoated satin black


I also managed to get my hands on some 7/16 Tygon for the build.

just need to find some free time to put it all together!

 

I really like those fans, the custom pieces look nice also.