Case Mod - In Progress Project "Lightning" + Transforming racing SIM Desk

I need some advise if anyone can help, i want to light the GPU block with leds, Ideally id like to power them off the graphics card fan power which would be able to glow brighter when its under load (when the fan would spin) does anyone know what the starting voltage would be for these types of fans and its max, my thought would be to wire enough leds in series to get just over the minimum voltage and to not blow under the max voltage?

 

Update:
Bought and installed the 1st Watercooled R9 290x, A few teething problems as it was rebooting a few seconds into a haven benchmark, I suspected a power issue so i flipped it to quiet mode which seemed to fix the issue and allowed a full haven benchmark, This appeared again when i tried to overclock.
I checked the PSU and the 2 hardwired PCI-E lines it was running off were rated at 15A each, the 2 spare modular ports were 25A, I swopped the 8-Pin over to the 25A line and left the 6pin on the 15A which fixed the issue.
Overclocking maxxed out at 1140 on the core with +100mv
Switched back to the Uber bios and this then pushed the OC to 1280 with 100mv and 1500 memory.
Benchmarked at this speed but Crysis 3 artefacted and crashed.
Wound back to 1270 & 1450 and bechmarked & gamed ok
Results showing at:
Haven = 1593 (Maximum settings 1080p)
3dMark11 = P16257
No firestrike test yet!
This was at 5087mhz CPU, and 1730Mhz on ram
Only a quick benchmark so I will play about with the voltage & core to see if i can bump it any higher, I also only have 2/3 front fans running slow so I can definatley improve the cooling to see if this improves. Also I know I have more headroom on the cpu and ram but this will take time to tweak.

 

Update: Painting

Latest update:

I have painted the Air 540's mesh grills & dvd drive with pastikote


The 290x arrived with a white backplate which i did not like so this has been covered with chrome vinyl. As a test I painted the backplate but it looks terrible so this will be getting redone


The next job will be to replace the 360's 45 degree with a 90 degree and test fit a midplate while the loop is empty and resolve the terrible backplate test painting.

The end result will have all the lower half connections going into the midplate, and i am intersted in cleaning up the power connections and combing these into single cables. My intial thoughts were to solder all the +12v and all grounds together so only 2 wires dropped into the plate but after some research due to my psu being quad rails this isnt possible and i will need to have 4 wires. So Given that, can anyone tell me if this is possible?

 

New delivery

Delivery #2 of Barrow fittings
3 x 90 degree rotary fittings (1 for the rad, 2 for the cpu to move the tubing)
2 x Female to Female 90 degrees to direct the SB tubing out past the gpu's and down to the midplate
2x Blank Chrome end caps to terminate on the gpu (remove the hex nut)



Sadly one of the fittings had a gouge out of it obviously during production as it has been plated over

They guys at Mizucool (ebay) have been great and said they will send a replacement ASAP and wanted a photo so they could show the supplier.

So far these "cheap" imitation bitspowers have been spot on and about 40% of the price of the logo`d bitspower which im not keen on due to the logo splattered all over. Delivery was pretty impressive too at 2 days (may have been next day if i had ordered early enough) However word of warning, there is a slight difference in naming, there is "Silver" and "Shiny Silver" There is a slight difference between them, the silver has a very slightly yellower look than the shiny silver, Connected together you can just tell, seperate you would be hard pushed to notice

This should let me make a start on the final tuning routing as this so far is only a temp solution so i can game on it while fabbing and designing the parts

Ive also had an idea on the backplate graphics so thats in planning at the moment, more to come on that

 

Next jobs to do over the upcoming weekend:
- Strip all the machine back to the case
- Chain the front fans & top fans into one header each
- Redo CPU fittings & tubing to make more visible
- Cut lower panel out ready for midplate building
- Cut 24 pin atx hole for custom atx power extension
- Build, fill, glue & paint custom ATX Power
- Fit test midplate

I have some v thick wire (similar to single core) , this will allow me to bend it to shape, glue the strands together, fill the gaps and paint to make thick bar type cables. Im trying to keep away from the standard sleeving if i can

 

Tubing Planning

Ive stripped back quite a lot of the system so I can plan the underfloor tubing routing and i think im happy with the tubing connection ideas
The plan should allow me to upgrade to add the second and 3rd card as when required
all tubing will stay on the same axis so eventually a straight row of 8 connections into the midplate


This does work



Also tried playing about with the CPU Connection
2x 90's

1x45, 1x90

Think im going to stick with this

Close up of the lower connections while i was working out the path ect


The heatshrinks just arrives to fans tonight i think as i can finnish the tubing till the replacement fitting arrives

 

Weekend update, Quite a busy one!!

Spliced the fans into one header for easier management and uniformity



Prepped the LCD & CPU Brackets for hydrographics




Also stripped the old aluminum covering from the inside of the block and replaced with silver vinyl and uv setting clear nail polish to prevent liquid ingress between it and the acrylic which should keep it silver



I also extended and re-routed the ram tubing to help keep the build looking clean
Added a 90 degree to the 360 rad to tidy the 360 tube


Tested the hydrographics on the backplate which came out ok for a first try but i learnt a few lessons, remove bubbles and make a slit in the masking tape so this will be getting removed and redone properly, this was only a test which is why there is still the old paint underneath



Wired smd leds to the sides of the CPU and GPU & tested:




And also built a new temporary test midplate as the lower tubing is now all at length

and bent to test shape



Final pic of this weekends work:

 

Next job, now the activator spray has arrived, maybe tonight will be to cover all the visible chrome, rough them all up and hydrographics the lot

Then to start work on the most ambitious part of the build, a 240mm x 380mm x 18mm acrylic, water manifold midplate linking all the lower tubes and joining front and rear sections!!!

Watch this space!

 

Made a start on the hydrographics prep work

Covered


Scuffed so the film adheres

Cut and masked a square 1" wider


And made a start on the backplate




Ive also prepped all the other parts ready, 2x cpu block shoulders, 240 Radiator edges, & 360 Radiator which ill be dipping tonight. I contemplated painting the parts chrome but this way I can preserve the original parts if I want to reuse them by simply peeling off the vinyl.
Im going to leave the SSD for now until im 100% on the descision as that cannot be removed.

Ive also painted the rear 140 fan silver but I want to replace this with one of the enermax batwing LED fans BUT it dosent seem they make the specific one im after.
140mm
Silver Halo
Blue LED
Batwing Blades
Silver fins
Black Shroud

They make 120 versions but in the 140 style i will need to strip and paint and i dont want to paint the blades if i dont have to. Also can anyone tell me if the LEDs are easily replaced on the 4 led versions??

 

Id like to make a midplate for all the tubing routing and my idea is to use an 8mm sheet of acrylic sandwiched between 2x 5mm sheers that will stretch the full space of the lower panel (where the horizontal part of the cardboard is now. On the front there will be a row of 8x connections going vertically to all 3 gpus and also the SB, within the block will be routing that will connect in series each of the cards and the SB.
The idea of the routing is such

the white is the block and blue is the water path channels.
I have incorporated some extra ports at the rear which would allow me to alter the water path and link adjoining paths if i found the need to add/remove cards/paths so I can remove cards and redirect the flow

I dont have access to a CNC machine so I though using o-rings would not be possible. I am simply going to cut all the blue paths out of a single piece of 8mm acrylic and glue a 5mm sheet above and below using acrylic glue.
However this means I will not ever be able to alter/clean the plate. My next thought was to silicone the sheets together meaning i MAY be able to knife them apart if it ever required but this im not too sure if it will hold enough.
Currently my idea is to run a line of silicone where o-rings would be required and then make a small jig with a razor blade inside that will allow me to trim the top of the silicone bead and leave a flat topped, uniform height silicone bead that should act as an o- ring, allow to fullt dry and screw down to the centre plate squashing the silicone and "hopefully" making a seal


I would love some feedback from the community about this or even any feedback on the project as a whole. Its getting lonely in here. so feedback people please. good or bad, suggestions or criticisms, thats why i made this build log to get ideas and pointers but noones really said much!

 

Dipped most of the parts last night


Most of them came out ok but some small parts need touching up and i had some folding occur due to the tank not being large enough which is why the 360 rad isn't done yet



One thing im not happy with is that I can see where i roughed up the vinyl as its supposed to stick better, so i think i will retry some of these without touching the vinyl

I like the look but i think the CPU and LCD may be too much, so I need to work out whether to relocate the LCD back into the midplate or do "something" different, but im not sure what yet
Anyway on to the fitted pics

 

-You are doing just fine. You are posting more often than the average log gets visited. Things have been quiet lately. Sometimes projects get lost in the chaos.

Leds in gpu fan power: I'm not sure that can be done, since there's no feedback to the card from the fans.
Manifold thing: You should be able to just seal them with silicone glue like you would an aquarium, although screws would be a good to keep the plates together under pressure. You only need the O-rings-torqued-down-stuff if there's a layer of metal that could corrode.

Edit: I missed the question about the silver vinyl. -That's probably a no-go too. Usually the metallic bit is aluminum, so essentially the same as the aluminum tape, just with a different backing. I don't even want to think about what would happen if the metal melts and you are left with tape goo floating around in the loop.

 

Cheers cheapskate, thats a shame abou the gpu power, ill have to wire to a molex, i was hoping to use it as a load display and set fan profiles to power the leds.

Yeah, im hoping i can disasemble it if required so ill try with the semi -oring idea first and leave fully sealing till that dosent work

Silver vinyl, oops, already fitted it, ill have to give it a go now and fingers crossed!. the alu tape disappeared pretty quickly and i think i managed to clean that out of the loop so we'll see, hopefully the nail polish will keep it in one piece. if not ill be fabbing a new cpu top! :/

In other news my google cardboard arrived yesterday and bolted to my note 3.... Thats fun, now ill be spending some time this weekend trying to mod it to play VR skyrim !

 

So i finnished the hydrographics on the remaining rad and covered the temporary midplate as its going to take a while before i get that job completed i think

 

Plexi plexi plexi

Well I had been deliberating on what to order for the plexi work thats next but i just walked past a shop who were throwing out a plexi magazine rack, quick chat and ive bagged myself best part of £40 worth of 3mm acrylic. and its bent where it needs to be to i can make the under motherboard panel and a lower shroud 4 times over This should work to make a better temp lower panel until i get the rest of the cards and fab the 4 way manifold plate unless i can safely tap 3mm acrylic and then things will get interesting. but i suspect its too thin and will need 5mm.

Also, will be swopping the ROG MB leds (to the left of the pcie slots) with blue leds when i strip the machine

 

Qnix 2710 Overclocking issues

qx2710 purchased! Cane in 3 days from korea and tbh im not blown away.
The monitors fine but i bought the more expensive version to be able to overclock it. which is fine, i can get it to 110hz, however only if the 290x is at stock, if i overclock the core then it flicks in and out of test mode ( red greed blue screens). Or i can run it at 60hz and overclock the gpu which just works out terribly!. I can either have gpu grunt but limited to 60fps, or 96hz but not having enough gpu power to get that high.
Im in hosital at the moment and havnt had a good chance to discover whats causing this but im reading maybe older drivers may help. Has anyone come across this issue that overclocking both an ati card AND the monitors causes no signal intermittently?? any help would be really appreciated.

The plan was to get one expensive single dvi style that will be the middle of three and 2x cheaper multi inputs to flank that will not overclock giving me the options to to run one @ 115hz or 3 at 60hz as i cant see me needing or having the gpu power to run 3x1440p at higher than 60. but it would have been nice to get the most out of the single centre screen for non eyefinity gaming

 

Been a bit quiet as ive been a bit ill after a life threatening asthma attack but im back now

PEBKAC - problem exists between keyboard and chair

Had a bit of a screw up which is still unresolved, the rig decided to power off and wouldnt come back on, Suspected the cpu may have blown due to running at 5.08 ghz (but at 1.425v onder water) did all the usual, bios, ram, cabling out ect and as a last ditch attempt decided to take it out of the case, however in doing so i put too much force on the SB waterblock and chipped the core = DEAD MOBO so im in the process of getting another, im thinking for the Gigabyte X79 UD3 for the price as it has decent coloring, 4x pcie, 4 ram, i hear its not the BEST overclocker but TBH if it pushes my 3820 to 4.6-4.8 ghz, ill be happy.

However once thats replaced, that may still leave me with a blown CPU, but heres to optimism.

TRIFIRE SWEETNESS

On the plus side, 3 months of ebay scanning and i finally dropped upon an EK watercooled 290x with backplates. not one, but 2!! So i came to a deal with the seller and picked up 2 Sapphire cards boxed with backplates and unused air coolers for £210 each. Happy with that as they come in at the same price as i paid for the first card plus £10 for the air cooler.



So im nearing the end of the main hardware, I have left to buy:
2x QX2710 screens
1x Replacement motherboard
and a new psu that will run 3 (maybe 4) cards and an oced 3820 / Possible 6 core upgrade later)
I am debating whether to run 3x 290x and a gtx 470 for physx. leaving me open to be able to swop out the 470 for a 290x later if FPS need a nudge higher. Im doubtful that will happen as 4-way scaling just dosent look good value.

POWER!!!?????

Im thinking 200w for the system and id like to get some numbers for highly oc`d 290x`s at load but i think they may be able to hit 400W each so i think im aiming at a 1400w psu, plus something to power the gtx 470 which can max 230w. However im aware this will hardly be touched and i should be able to downclock/down volt it to maybe add 100w. Therefore 1500w.

I have an 800w currently so i think this will be fine for the system + 2x stock 290x`s, I did wonder about adding another psu just to power the last GPU but im still researching crossload and common ground to work out if its an option as it would save me a lot of money. If anyone has advise on this id love to hear!!

COST

And then finally once all the HW is together is to make the custom manifolds. So my dream PC is getting very close to a reality. Some of its been done on the cheap and bargains but i did some number crunching last night and worked out that if i were to go out now and buy all brand new at todays prices then I would be looking at.... and this is coincidentally the i7 name... or is it? £3820.34 (before shipping) - This dosent include the cost of tools that i had to be able to build this, or other bits like hydrographics and paint

So this pc isnt a "see how much £ i can throw into a rig" but a well thought out exersise in cost saving and best value for money to get what i wanted to achieve. Namely an Ultimate Dream Gaming PC (on the cheap)
Ive built some of this up over the years from bargains and sales, and some from parts that should have been scrapped but lovingly brought back to life like the 360 Rad that was bought for £10 punctured 3x and repaired with £3 JB Weld.
And 1700mhz ram thats actually just well researched good quality 1333 ram that was 1/2 the price of 1600mhz "Gaming" ram

It looks like it will cost me in total £2385 - saving almost £1500 on new for what I would condsider the highest spec available Gaming PC

Before i start arguments, i have said highest spec availiable. By this i mean, Yes i could have got 3x4k screens, or a 28 core CPU, or..... the list goes on, but there isnt enough GPU power availiable to run 3x4k screens, a 5960x, well why? its only got to have enough grunt to not bottleneck the gpus. the gpus only have to run enough to reach 60 frames. 8gb ram, I dont need more, (well i might).

Basically I have gone for the parts that will be enough to do the job at the best value for money, i think, only the 290x`s are overrated i think, and maybe i should have gone 3x 290 but I got them at a good price. not much more than the 290's, this wouldnt have been true if i was buying new however. Sadly I wish i had bought the screens a year or so ago when they were new to the market and going for £150 ish

 

Well ive been given the all clear so the build it well & truly back on track

MOTHERBOARD
Well things have been a bit up and down with the build. Ive now got a new Gigabyte X79 UD3 plugged in only to find errors 124 & 07 when installing windows which point towards the CPU being fried so the build is STILL not working until that gets replaced

POWER
I bit the bullet and decided to not use the GTX470 as it appears that it may be too flaky using old drivers to try get physX hybrid and id prefer newer drivers & cheaper PSU over physX so I picked up a superflower 1300w yesterday in cybermonday from Overclockers UK as its single rail i can explore the possibilities of combining the 12v wires again.

COOLING
I have also picked up a HW Labs GTX 140 radiator cheap on ebay to help with the heat dump from the 3 cards, sadly it dosent fit inside the case at the rear where i wanted it, i had planned to remove one of the 240 rad fans to fit it but thats not going to be possible and i will have to mount on the rear of the case, untidier but better performing. I also have concerns about loop restriction as its now running 3x Rads, 3x GPUs, 4 Ramblocks & 1 restrictive CPU block which i think may be too much for the DDC1t 12W (modded to 18W).
The plan is to use a parrallel GPU (on its way) bridge to increase CPU flow and also im trying to research the effects of using 2 parrallel radiators as in my head if the flow is slower through the rads this can only be a good thing, this should also increase the rest of the loop flow.
The other option is to add another pump, and im not 100% which way to go. any advise appreciated

SPECIALTECH
Few bits on order from these guys mainly a triple parralel gpu block. Also coolant and tubing as the mayhems aurora has coated the tubing and dropped out of the loop so thats going. And a couple of "bits" like a blue pump o-ring and some fan gromets

BITFENIX
I signed up to a competition to win £100 of bitfenix gear on halloween and checked last night as to who had won and over the moon to read it was me , Sadly.... I didnt get a PM or notification and due to being ill when i checked yesterday they had put it back to a re-draw 2 days ago. So im gutted about that, I would have loved to swop the 2nd hand random fans with some nice matching Spectre Pros. Ive messaged the UK rep running the comp to see if they will re-consider me so ill keep you posted! Fingers crossed

 

OK, so a very long wait to write this post... The base unit main HW is finally complete.

It turns out the CPU was dead so that has been swopped

Onto the progress
Bought a Superflower 1300 in the cybermonday deals. Seems like a really good psu and it will run silent up to 500 odd watts which will be nice for when its not pushing graphics out and with the amount of rad I should be able to run the cpu only and have a fanless system
Also it wil peak at about 1600w so that alleviates any of my concerns about 1300w being enough (more on that later)


Nice set of cabling, just wish the pcie 8 & 8 wernt on such hard, short, heatshrinked extensions as it makes the cabling look rather untidy for the 6 + 8 pins. To connect both, the wire stands out nearly 2 inch


Had a quick play with it using 2 cards and the extra 140 rad. Sadly the rad didnt fit inside the case, however if it had i would have had less cooling power as i would have had to remove one of the 240 fans and also blocked up 15% of the rad. There was deliberation wether to put the 240 rad in the bottom but this would have meant no shroud and also the fans wouldnt have had the full air access as the gpu would have blocked it slightly


Some more of the specialtech order:

Full set of fan gaskets and a replacement o-ring

And onto the shroud:
I had planned to buy some acrylic and bend it, however i passed a shop clearout and they were skipping some of the plexi magazine racks to this became the donor

Cut to a rough shape


Cut the Radiator Space


Nice snug fit


Test positioning the LCD and decided to seperate the pump res from the pump


Mounting the final piece



Tapped the new exit port


Glued a noggin to the rear and cut the lower out to allow ease of access whilst leaving it as functional as possible



Sadly, Due to trying to save money and picking up cards on ebay, I ended up with mismatched blocks which really irks me but Ill have to get over it.
Installed the water bridge


This must have been taken pre reservoir seperation - while i was planning the tubing routing & best placement for LCD/SSD

With Case


And with Res moved



Some things happened at this point but the pictures were sadly lost.

The tubing routing was decided, as was the placement of the Lightning SSD and the Samsung.

The loop was filled with Feser juice, never again will i have mayhems in my machine, as it says on the tin, its not for normal machines, just for short term show use. Hope they get past that as it does look pretty cool and lets you see the flow.

I moved the CCFL to the bottom of the case under the shroud

All of the Fan gromets were installed

The shroud inside was dipped in hydrographics which unfortunatley didnt come out perfect. This i may one day re-do but it will require a new shroud making

The fan wires were all sleeved

Pump mounted on anti shocks in the read of the case

Cable management in the rear

Redflames very kindly agreed to share the bitfenix prize so I can replace the fans Thank you very much to him and Gavbon

And it was all powered up!!!!





So thats it up to date, its finally running and pushing 20000 in firestrike, 13000 firestrike extreme and just short of 4000 in haven.

Still to do:
Replace fans
GPU power wiring
Cosmetic work
Im thinking of a BigNG for fan control as i cant seem to get speedfan to run correctly. Im not too happy with the load temps of it either.

I have it running at 4.75 Ghz with the cards benchmark stable at 1220mhz core & 1350mhz memory. Daily ill drop them down to 1130 as i can do that on stock voltages.

Temps so far are about 10 degrees difference between the cards
Top card max ~54
Mid card max ~57
Bot card max ~64

and cpu about 55 degrees

This seems quite high to me so ill have to look into this but its not easy to now re-apply thermal grease without a full loop drain.

 

Random update:
Quite a few cosmetic changes over the last few weeks and pics to follow:
- The light blue mesh front & top have been resprayed silver.
- The fan panels have been covered in bark blue metallic vinyl
- All 3 backplates covered with dark blue metallic vinyl
- The visible edge of delrin/acrylic on the gpus has been covered with vinyl
- PCI thumb screws sprayed metallic blue
- Front Reservoir screws painted metallic blue
- Front Reservoir has a border of vinyl
- Power & reset switched sprayed metallic blue
- Fan screws painted metallic blue
- Rerouting of cabling in the rear to tidy it up
- GPU Cable sleeving removed ready to resleeve
- Internal Reseroiur extended fill port removed
- RGB Light strip installed under the lower cover and at top & front of case
- Terminal block screws sanded silver ready for metallic painting
- Reflashed all cards to the same bios after i established that one of the 2nd hand cards were running on the PT1 bios and not down-clocking and causing a 10 degree difference between cards, they all run withing 2/3 degrees now with no perfomance loss

BIG THANK YOU goes to RedFlames who very kindly agreed to split the Halloween BitFenix Prize and I now have 5x120 and 1x140 Fan to replace the internal fans also a thanks to Gavbon who suggested & helped this happen

I found the system was maxxing out at 58/59 degrees which i wanted to reduce so started playing with the fans and discovered that when the case side is on then the front 360 fans make little to no difference if they are on or off, and with the case side off then fans on/off only make 3 degrees difference!!!

This was replicated with the 140 & 240 rad and these seemed to make much more difference so im looking into how I can better configure the radiator setup.

My concern has always been that only the front rad is intaking clod air and the rest are recycling warm air so my aim is to replace the rear rad with just an exhaust fan, possible reverse the top 240 direction and test the temps.
The 140 will be used temporarily as an external to test its effectiveness on the loop temps and then i plan to either remove it or relocate it to the rear chamber where it may have more effect

Upcoming jobs to do:
- Install BitFenix fans
- Test temps
- Install light strips between graphics cards
- Properly configure speedfan to switch off most fans when GPUs are not under load
- Test fit rad in rear
- Paint EK Terminal screws

-= Now Updated=--
Very delayed but heres the progress of this post with the bit fenix fans painted and installed, The sanded down Screw heads and all the above updates / jobs completed. Much cleaner now i think