Modding 4U Rack Case, now with watercooling!

Hello all,

So I've got a relatively simple project, limited in scope as a mod. It's a Chenbro RM-F41300. It's a 4U case with two 80mm fans above the mobo I/O panel, and provision for two 120mm fans on the top, removeable part of the case. In the previous iteration I just bought low-profile RAM and a Noctua NL-12. Recently I bought some parts from a friend and the Corsair Dominator RAM no longer fits under that, and I wanted to do some overclocking. So it was time, after 15 years of having a custom-built PC, to do some proper water cooling. Until then, I'm using the Beigemobile.


Here's what it was two years ago, an i7-3770k, delidded, and two GTX 970s with 4 sticks of low-pro RAM. 120mm intake fan is on the bottom left of the picture. I originally wanted to do something simple as an AIO, but that's over 16 inches from the front to the processor, so that really made it not possible without a few inches of intake tubing to use an off-the-shelf solution.

So, after looking at it wondering what to do, this kit was on sale at a price that made me think, "Hey, why not!"

I got a (2) 5.25" reservoir w/ pump, cpu block, and a 120mm radiator that is 60mm thick. Thickness is my upgrade path, so we'll see if that is enough cooling.

Anyways, onto the actual progress!

First test, radiator in the shorter way, it barely fit with the shipping caps in place. Thankfully the other way had enough clearance to just fit the radiator.


Yup, that fits much better. Now to see how things line up with the existing fan!


So the fan is mounted to a cage that held the fan and filter,then that rotates into place within the mounting bracket. Seems quite redundant to me, but what do I know? The radiator is a bit shorter than the whole bracket, so that works out well in my favor.


Here's a picture of the cage and the bracket atop the radiator and fan.


Here I was just wrapping my head around how it'd mount further. Really this made me realise that if the fan mounts allow the clearance, this will work out.


It'll work out with the clearance behind it that is. I marked at where the fan cage came back and braced against the mounting bracket as my guide all around.

[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/pka0i3gh.jpg)
And here's the image immediately after meeting my angle grinder! I could've been a bit neater with the cut, but it certainly serves its purpose well.


And there is the backside. Normally the fan is mounted from the reverse in the cage and the filter is slid in front. Then it's rotated into place. This mounting method for a radiator removes my means to run a fan in the cage, as I can't get the mounting hardware in, and no filter. The positive is water-cooling though, so I'm still winning.


Bonus, the hardware was all hex head, so I didn't need to cut any of the honeycomb on the front to secure anything.


Here is a dry-fit from the front, I added some rubber washers to reduce vibration transfer. Long-term this will have two ML120s in a push-pull config. I'm going with those fans because of the high static pressure and lack of bearings. -not pictured, my GTX 1080Ti due to shot bearings.


And here's an interior shot. The case is a mess as I am still in the midst of the upgrade and haven't even tried to cable manage.


The moment of truth, the top slid onto the case with ease and didn't bind at all! I was ecstatic when I found out that it'll work without issue with the stock mounting locations. I would have elongated those fan holes with a rat tail file otherwise.


And here's a shot of the block without any bracket. Just because I was excited.

Things left to do:
Mount pump
Cut and place tubing
Mount block
Fill and leak test system.
Overclock

One question I do have, any tips or tricks to plumbing this system that would've saved you a lot of hassle their first time? Thanks for looking BT!

 

Nice embedding work as of now, I wish I could help with WC tips, unfortunately I'm on the same level , but there are real experts here , you're planning soft tubbing aren't you?

 

Thanks Kim! I'm just putting off filling the loop at this point it feels like. I'll have to just get it done. I am planning on doing soft tubing. Sounds a lot easier than hard tubing and I feel like I've got enough of a challenge already!

 

Well here's an update from the past few days.

I got the block mounted - I thought the wiring would be stupidly clean, but then I remembered I forgot all the fans, SATA cables, and a few other power cables. *womp womp*


Flushed the radiator out with filtered water


Mounted the pump in the reservoir, in the drive bay cage


Got some more ML120 fans for the radiator and all mounted together


Cut and placed the soft-tubing for the system, may get some clamps to hold them more together. Does anyone know a good place to find those?


Found out my reservoir has a handy dandy fill spout, which my case interferes with a bit, but if I were to get a better fill bottle like those chemical bottles with the spout I could fill this pretty handily. It was time for me to fill the loop.


I started to fill the loop via the radiator first and then by the reservoir, tried to remove the largest air pockets.Once done I plugged in the PSU ground plug and ran the pump for a bit. It's still working air out in this picture but it's pretty good.


I checked it this morning, no weeping of coolant at all from any fittings, it seems like it's holding water very well.
So now, after 16 years of looking at stuff on Bit-Tech (I lurked for a while) I can finally join the watercooled computer ranks! It's definitely not as impressive as some (Some are just amazing) but thanks to BT for the information that people have posted over the years!

Not running the computer just yet, going to bleed the air a few more times and still waiting on my GTX 1080Ti to get back from RMA.

March 9th, 2020 UPDATE

Ran Cinebench R20 and Asus RealBench, in a 17C (63F) degree ambient room (it is heated to that temp, not cooled) I was getting to 72C on average across all cores on a 20 minute run while at 5 GHz. It's a great chip for the silicon, definitely did well with that lottery, but the loop runs well and the graphics is back in the computer and it's re-racked! I'd call this loop a big success, one thing that I didn't plan out too well is a drain line, I'll need to look into that, maybe out the front 3.5" floppy drive at the bottom of the cage, definitely something to worry about when the loop needs to be drained in a year rather than now.

 

It looks great! And like it came out of the factory setup like it is.