Case Mod - In Progress Webbstation = Project Silent but Violent

My PC has grown through various different guises. It originally started out as a home workstation for web design and Office use, and then has grown into the machine it is today.

The original spec was:
AMD Phenom II X4 965BE
Gigabyte MA-790XT-UD4P
8GB Corsair Dominator 1600MHz 8/8/8/24 - CMD4GX3M2B1600C8
2 x 1TB Seagate 7200.11 - RAID 1
Gigabyte 4870 1GB
Coolermaster Elite 330
Corsair HX620

The machine was nice and fast - plenty fast enough for what I needed, but it was LOUD!

The stock cooler on the Gigabyte 4870 could not be adjusted as it was only a 2 pin connector, up until this point the noise of a PC had not really bothered me, but this was a turning point for me!

I had also been off sick due to a spinal operation (2 disks removed from my neck and replaced with titanium spacers - see profile pic), so I was home a lot of the time and using the PC got on my nerves!

I won't put all the details of the various builds but suffice to say, I have spent a fortune on testing various components out and then moving onto the next in the aim of silence!

I leave the PC on most of the time, and it is in our bedroom, so silence is a big issue for me.

Well here is a photo of the build as of this morning.... however it is all due to change as soon as a parcel arrives today:


The final build will be:
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T overclocked to 3.8GHz (4.3GHz turbo) - temp (30c -> 57c)
Asus ROG Crosshair IV Formula
8GB Corsair Dominator 1600MHz 8/8/8/24 - CMD4GX3M2B1600C8
Crucial C300 128GB SSD
Intel X-25-M 80GB SSD
Samsung HM160HI 160GB 2.5" HDD
Samsung SH-B083L Blu-Ray Combo drive
MSI nVidia GTX 460 1GB overclocked to 915MHz Core / 1830MHz Shader / 1960MHz RAM (3920) - temp (28c -> 60c)
Asus Xonar Essence STX connected to AudioEngine A2 speakers
Coolermaster CM690-II Advanced with Coolermaster windowed side panel
Corsair HX650

The following cooling components will be used:
EK-Supreme HF - Full Nickel - CPU Block
EK-FC460 GTX - Nickel - GPU Block
EK-DCP 2.2 - 12V DC Pump
EK-Reservoir Combo DCP 2.2
EK PSC Compression Fitting - Black Nickel - for Radiator and Pump
EK PSC Compression Fitting - Silver - for Water Blocks
XSPC RX Series 240mm Dual Radiator
Masterkleer 3/8" ID - 1/2" OD (10-13mm) Tubing : Silver / UV Blue

The following fans will be used:
4 x Scythe S-Flex E fans on the radiator (Push/Pull) @ 400rpm -> controlled by MB (CPU fan)
1 x Scythe S-Flex E fan mounted in rear case bay @ 500rpm -> controlled by MB (case fan)
2 x Fractal Design Silent Series 140mm fans in roof case bays 0rpm -> controlled by mCubed HFX 112 fan controller - probes mounted to RAM for one fan and Northbridge for the second, fans are off until RAM or NB get hot and then the fan above comes on

The following Cold Cathodes will be used:
1 x UV mounted at the top of the case, permanently on.
2 x White mounted at the bottom and front of the case connected to the switch on the case

Photos of the build should be up later today depending on how late the delivery arrives!

Also to follow will be a build log of WebbServer (p.s. my surname is Webb hence the names, I also have WebbBook (a Samsung X-460 laptop) and WebbEEE (an Asus EEEPC 1001HA) sad but....). My server will be taking my Reserator and standard Zalman CPU block until I can afford an K-FB ASUS Crosshair 4 - Nickel for the motherboard...

 

Well the build went "fairly" well - apart from my mistake in the EK Reservoir manual that says you don't have to dismantle the pump, just take out the screws...
...I removed the front plate, mounted the reservoir, then wondered why Fesser started dribbling out!

Once I had that sorted it's gone as I had hoped mostly.

1. The Masterkleer tubing is VERY flexible compared to the Zalman stuff, and is easy to kink - so took a lot of faffing to get it looking good, but not kinking. The Zalman was better in this regard.

2. It's not quite as quiet as I hoped, hopefully after it has been running in for a while and bled properly (I have done the on/off rock the case type bleeding, but can still hear the odd bubble) it might quieten down, if not I can knock back the pump as it is mounted to a fan port on the motherboard that can be controlled.

So now for some pics:

Do not dismantle the pump...


Combo connected - but missing the important internal part - doh!










Dark shots with UV cathode (permanently on)










White Cathodes on as well

 

Thats a nice tidy build mate, I especially like the way the silver tubing goes blue under the UV...nice one +rep

 

owwww that does it. I am going back to watercooling, I just keep getting tempted by all these awesome project logs.

 

ooooh, looooopy!!

This looks awesome dude, loving the silver tubing!

 

Very nice build. That plastic grill on the window looks out of place though - would look much nicer if you glued/screwed a replacement window in.

 

very nice what are ur temps as i see you only have the 1 rad just wondering if i could get away with 1.

 

Nice indeed. I understand why you want to cool water between cpu and GPU (Phenom x6) but it leads to long looping tubes, and slight kinks. Your EK-DCP headpressure is only 2.2m, max flow 400L/min.

There is EK-DCP 4, bigger but 4m, roughly a MCP655 (4.7m) for half the price, and there's is the phobya DC12-260 (2.6m) that could fit your case too.

 

Why do you have two SSDs and the laptop hard drive? Why not just a single larger SSD and then a F3 or a big fast hard drive for storage.

Also, wouldn't it make more sense to have the GPU to radiator tube exit from the bottom of the waterblock and go straight into the radiator, rather than making that big sweeping curve?

 

The plan was to make it as quiet as the resorator used to be - unfortunately, it isn't

The resorator instead of this pump combo only had 300lph and a 0.5m head, it was quieter, and seems to have been working as the temps were actually LOWER with it! The radiating side of it must have helped - am currently in two minds to go back to it!

 

I went from 7200.1s to Ecogreens in Scythe QuietDrives to keep the noise levels down, I then bought the Intel SSD. Finally I bought the 6gbps C300 and used the 80GB Intel as a second disk. I have the 2.5" drive purely as a place to rip video files to while I work on them, and then move them onto my server when complete (which now has the Ecogreens, plus other disks). 2.5" drives are quieter as they are designed for notebooks etc.

As for the tubing, yep that was my plan, but this tubing is so easy to kink, it just made it easier like that to avoid kinks.

 

Yeah that side vent put me off buying the side window - it is a Coolermaster part, not something I made. I am considering removing the window and replacing with a lightly tinted piece of perspex.

 

Still waiting for the loop to bleed completely, it started off looking worse than the Resorator, but after a bit of jigging about and a lot of water noises through the rad, the temps have dropped.

Did a quick half hour Prime test and max temp was 52c - would have been probably about 5c higher with the resorator.

Idle temps seem the same - CPU 35c, GPU 29c.

Will leave it on all night, and then try some Furmark tests tomorrow (today now...) to check GPU temps.

 

Looks like a tight build



BTW please mulit-quote, it's kinda annoying if you don't

 

Most part of the loop is below the pump. You could locate SSDs/hdd in the 5 1/4 bays and move the pump where your drives currently are.

Theses pump don't suck water from below very well.

 

there pretty nice temps considering you only have 1 rad if i could get away with one it would make my life so much easier.

 

ambient temps this morning are about 23c, and idle temps when I looked at the pc (it had been idling overnight after a steam download) 34c cpu / 29c gpu - so slowly dropping - could be due to pump bleeding, as the reservoir level is very slowly dropping (and no leaks this time!)

 

True I could, but no real place to mount it - plus it looks nicer where it is

As you can see in this pic, it is sat on a layer of Akasa Paxmate (along with both sides of the 5,25" drive bay (inner and outer, not left and right if you see what I mean). It is then sat on the anti-vibe pad that came with the pump and then zip strapped to the side of the case. The thing with the Red LED is the mCubed HFX 112 fan controller. I also have the whole non windowed portion of the side panel covered in paxmate along with any area above the top fans to cut down on any vibrations:



My next project is to possibly change the tubing as not too happy with how kinky it can get (bad tubing / or maybe good tubing!) I was used to a slightly thicker wall with the zalman stuff, so could bend it easier without risking a kink. I will at that point add in a T-piece at the bottom of the loop to aid draining (at the moment it will need to be a quick removal of the rad fitting and into a bowl - praying I dont spill too much...).

Following that I am planning to remove the stock window with the fan fixing that I dont like, and add a very lightly tinted piece of perspex. If I could find that stuff you see on films that is dark, and then goes clear at the press of a button (due to charged particles to make it dark?) and it wasn't too expensive, then I would go for that - would be great! Stealth look, but at the press of a button, a bare naked PC!

 

Also while I an in typing mode (just woken up to take my morning pain killers, so will get droooooowsy soon...) I thought about the Zalman in the living room on WebbServer, and there is no need - it is running at roughly 21c in the day when there is no heat in that room and that is acting as an Exchange server. It only has case fans on minimum and a bare Zalman CNPS10x Flex (no fans).

The Zalman will collect dust till next month when I get the chipset block for the motherboard...

Right back to bed now, and I will run an Everest stability check while I snooze and listen to Chris Moyles, to get some load temps (although they will be lower to Prime95).

Night!

 

2 hours into the stability test - with furmark running in a window at 1280/1024:


Obviously there are a couple of issues here...
1. South bridge has never been only 3c!
2. Chassis Fan (S-Flex E) has never gone 55512rpm!
3. Not sure what the 7rpm fan #2 is!

However to give you more info:
OPT1 is the temp probe I have mounted so it hangs out the front of the PC case into clean air.
OPT2 is the temp probe I have mounted at the back of the case pointing up.
I also have a seperate temp probe in the room (A clock / Temp probe) which is reading 21.3c at the moment.
FAN#1 is the pump

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2.5 hours in and now have stopped the everest stability test and starting Prime95, will post temps running that later...




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Half an hour running prime as well with furmark:


Now closed Furmark to see if the temps cool down at all...

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Two and a half hours running Prime95 only - I cleared the temp sensors to enable the drop from the GPU not being used to show: (please note the difference in Prime tests was due to me using the pc to check emails and update my iPod during the Prime test)


Quite happy with those temps, no need to add another radiator. The only thing I might play about with is the speed of the pump which I can reduce in increments of 10% in the BIOS. May be able to get it quieter, but will need to experiment with temps to see if it usable.

Will give the pc half an hour idling time and then post a final pic to show how it has managed to cool off....

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Half hour idling, temps almost back to originals of 35 / 29 - now 36/30 - so not too bad:


And an image showing the overclocked turbo mode in action: