Project: FrozenFire (MORE!! Watercooling changes Sep 8 05)

allelectronics may do int'l shipping on them, not sure

If it helps, it says "Penn Fabrication" on the rubber grip part (sans quotes of course).

I finally got the photoshop pic descriptions somewhat figured out so all the new logs will have the commentary to them I think. For now, here are some more pics and a link to the day's updates:

http://www.1sweetpc.com/firehed/v2000/feb14/index.html



I like the black-on-black sleeving, although I just came up with a great idea that I may play around with more later...


Crystalfontz 4x20 character. Yellow on black.


Newegg is killing me with boxes... they sent a pack of DVDs and a pack of batteries both from Cali in two different boxes... well when I sell old stuff it may come in handy



The pumps will go somewhere around there... they don't have their new fittings yet. I ordered new housings with G1/4 thread They'll get P&C fittings like they should.


Rear fans have been all sleeved up.



The system speaker came in a bad location - I moved it and sleeved it as well.

 

It's looking great. I can't believe how many people are getting V series lian lis now. edit: Don't take it wrong, I'm a big fan After initially not liking the mesh-type look, I think I might have to get one Subscribed!

 

The reason I said blue was your H20 loop is blue and your PSU is sleeved blue. Now it looks as though you are going with the black/black sleeve (which I like). Your LCD is black/yellow. Perhaps yellow, on top of the black case it would be very dark. Could look cool. You really should have a consistent color theme running throughout your case.
http://www.cuttingedgecasemods.com/colors/colors.htm
Alpha cool has red/green/blue and yellow dye. (although I am not of fan of using dye in the loop).

 

Very nice, loving the way your still keeping the Lian-Li style without over modding it.

Subscribed

 

oh lol, that's a test psu that I had for fitting purposes I thought you would have noticed that... PSU modding hasn't come close to beginning (need parts!) but your old DVD drive plan gave me an idea... :shhh:

The water loop will have a few drops of uv blue dye (won't be very visible) which comes out green under uv light (don't ask, but it did when I was messing around) and combined with the tubing, which is slightly stained in the pics, gives an amazing turquoise-ish color. I'm thinking smoked acrylic will be present but I like the yellow idea too (not sure how yet). Smoked will most likely be used to hide wiring, I'll ponder the yellow during science today

 

i've got that Antec psu! its fantastic!

 

That's good to know. As I don't have the dual cards I want I'm just going to have to cross my fingers that it'll take the load before I start modding it. I'm confident it will - I chose it because of it's MASSIVE single 12v rail (SLI tends to not like dual rail, I won't go into details why), and the 8-pin 12v connector provides me with almost all the wires I'll need for dual PCIE connectors (2 12v 3 ground each, the other two grounds will come from the old 6-pin aux).

I just placed what I hope to be my last order for a while from SNT. It's mostly fittings and whatnot, but it came to over $100 for just that! I also picked up my second GPU block (I want it ready for when I have the two cards) used from Dan for only $28

Hopefully I can get what I need from Performance-PCs (PSU mod stuff), McMaster (nuts and bolts that I can't find locally) and Cuttingedgecasemods (acrylic) fairly soon. Plus about fifty LEDs and metallic bezels from eBay. And Allelectronics for other lighting/fan control items.

The good news is that it doesn't seem as expensive when you don't buy everything all at once. Hopefully the end result will be worth it. I've already spent way too much to cheap out on something and not have it be as nice.

Anyone looking for a watercooled P4? Because it could make this a lot less painful on my wallet... [My old one is for sale]

 

The new housings for the pump came in today, finally allowing me to avoid all the stupid adaptors and whatnot. I now have the G1/4 fittings that I needed. Hopefully the fittings and everything from SNT come in moderately soon.

Unfortunately the dual pump mount has some issues - the holes don't line up correctly and it came missing three out of the four rubber feet. I've contacted C-systems about it so hopefully that can get corrected by the time the new fittings arrive. The pumps may also end up getting switched to CSP-MAG models which were recently released, I should be getting a pair for review. Unfortunately I'd have to go back to the 1/4" barbs temporarily as they need to fill the american 1/4NPT stock before they start with the G1/4 threaded versions. The good news out of that is they should be even quieter and more reliable due to their design.

/edit - WOW! After a mere nine minutes I already got a response, and they'll hand-check the replacement mounting bracket before it gets sent out.

 

I googled C-systems without much luck. Do you have a link for the company?

 

www.c-systems.ca
However AFAIK you can only buy through Dtek Customs in the US right now. I'd hold off on that (if you were going to) until they update their site with the new MAG version. It would be a lot more suited to this as I can avoid the elbow on the outlet (or inlet) since both are on top, not one per side. Like a smaller version of the DDC 3/8" 12v pump.

 

I just got an email from SNTsystems telling me the "out-of-stock" gear I ordered a week ago has been "back-ordered". If I had to guess, I would say we can expect shipment about 3/17/05 (@best). This Guy is hanging on by his finger nails, I would bet $$ he has yet to even place a new AC order!! I have been dealing with this for the last year..( he is killing me).
Only order Aqua-Computer equipment from SNT, get your fittings/misc stuff from AlphaCool. Two weeks instead of a month or two..(you lol the last time I said this).....

PS:
Was checking out C-systems, looks to be Good-stuff. thanks.

 

Looks awsome Subscribed

 

I've thought of getting a dual setup of them before but Dtek is/was constanely out. I've actually thought of getting them from Bigfoot in Canada since they had them in stock and the shipping to the US wasn't as bad as I thought.

 

I preordered the pumps from Dtek in like november, I didn't get them until January I think. Regardless I'd encourage everyone to wait until they update their catalogs to the MAG versions at this point.

Yes MS that thing will DEFINATELY be painted, or more likely vinyl dyed with the HDD racks. It'll probably also get hidden behind an idea I have.

My mom just took the car so unless I want to walk to walmart for the dye (which I don't... it's about 15f outside, and it's about 3 miles and a lot of intersections) that'll have to wait until a bit later. That'll definately get done this weekend since that's the only thing I can pick up locally. Hopefully I can get some of my lighting stuff ordered as well [and get a job...] and get to work on that sometime next week.

I already ordered the fittings from SNT, but as I needed other stuff there it doesn't matter if it takes a while... he said he hopes to have the stuff in by the end of the month. And as there's quite a bit to be done before I can get the hardware wet again (it's setup in my old chenming at the moment) I'm not in a hurry.

I think you should go start your own equivalent of SNT... TBH I'd bet you'd find it's harder than you think but I'd buy from you if you wanted to do it

 

Over the weekend I didn't get a whole lot accomplished, mostly due to a lack of parts

However I did get around to dying the hard drive racks black, which IMO looks a lot better than the stock grey. I'm honestly not sure that what I used was actual vinyl dye, but it got the job done fairly well.

I also decided to stick most of the hardware in the case. I just couldn't plan things out as well as I needed to with the poorly made paper template I had been playing around with. It'll mean that I have to take everything out again but I'd rather be arsed with that than have it come out like crap. I found that the clearance on the graphics card to the rear rad is about 2mm but it DOES fit Also the +12v power plug gets hidden nicely behind it which is a plus. There's a small heatsink in that same area of the board, presumably over the MOSFETs which probably won't get as much airflow as it ideally should, so I hope it won't be a problem. I don't have any way of knowhing whether or not it will until I have all the parts in and the system running but I doubt it will be.

On to what you want, the pics!



A shot of the case open and closed with not much in it... I just used these to plan out ideas for windows.


The dual-pump mounting bracket that was missing quite a bit of hardware. Hopefully what I need will come later this week and I can get the pumps installed. Unfortunately the new fittings aren't looking to come until the end of the first week of march



Just the bases of the waterblocks. They look a lot better, especially the graphics block, in real life, but both are very smooth which is what actually matters.


The dyed hard drive racks. Again, they look better IRL.



Another set of shots of the racks, with a couple drive installed.


A vague idea of what the front of the case will be like. I'm considering relocating the LCD, but not sure about that yet. There is another optical that will go with the stealther under the existing one and my Audigy drive will be in the bottom. I may try my hand again at stealthing that too, but it depends how it looks when it's done.


The A8N-SLI Deluxe installed, with *shudder* stock cooling for the moment and my Gig of OCZ PC4000 Gold. You can see the test fit hard drives. The pumps are in the small boxes in the PSU area.


Mobo closeup.


No comments on the wire management, this is a TEST FIT! With luck the only stuff you'll see is the watercooling tubing, and maybe a bit of the leads going to the graphics cards when I get them.


My three (for the moment, it could end up being as many as five!) hard drives installed. The SATA cables are a VERY tight fit... I'll probably end up either getting longer ones or putting the external SATA bracket that came with the board to some more practical use.

More in next post...

 

That's a lotta wires coming out of that PSU!


More wiring hell. The thing coming right down the middle is my temportary front panel setup (power led, etc). As it turns out, the FPIO cabling is a hair too short the way I have it routed, and the USB and 1394 are out of the question. I have plans to deal with that though.


You can see that I hacked up an IDE cable for the optical drives to try and clean up the slack. Not perfect but a marked improvement over the six inches or so between the connectors as they were placed.


Case front with the other optical drive (need a second stealther) and Audigy drive in place.


Just a tiny bit too short. I can just squeeze on the system speaker but that's it. The multicolored stuff is my temp solution.


The +12v ("P4" power) line is hidded fairly nicely back there. If you look very closely you can see the MOSFET sink (looks like an extension of the stock heatsink). It looks like the SLI "EasyPlug" wiring should be hidden fairly well too!


The back of the case... nothing too special.


Just to get across how painful the cable management will be...

I also came up with a couple window ideas that I like... here they are. I'm leaning towards the three smaller windows because I don't wanna have to see or deal with that rather ugly metal of the hard drive rack.





Questions? Comments? Suggestions?

 

You are moving right along, and have a solid plan. I like the 3-window idea, but perhaps the back of the bottom rear window should be inline with the back of the top window (just an idea).
Nice big update with lots of pictures, COOL.

 

Yeah, I had to split it into two posts there were so many (28 I think)

I'll play around with aligning the windows, those were just to get ideas. I'll tape up a ruler to the panel so I can know just where to cut and then re-photoshop it so no surprises

I was thrilled to find out that as I have things set up right now the only significant noise is from the chipset and GPU fans, as well as some more from the back 120mm (not as loud as the others, but it's not temp controlled like the front 120mm, but it will be controlled at some point). Which means my goal of a very quiet computer is in sight.

You said you got that Carbon Fiber skin from PolyGFX right? I'm thinking I may swipe your idea and apply it to the PSU as well. Hopefully their ModSkins sized thing (30"x15") will cover that. For anyone reading this who doesn't know what I'm talking about, look at the earlier parts of Modsquad's Black Narcissus log

That's another $40 on the list Then again my trip to walmart for vinyl dye cost me over $70 (I ended up at home depot too...) for a $5 can of paint. But I'm up an electric screwdriver and a respirator among other things. And I'm seeing another probably $200 worth in various other places. :needs a sponsor:

 

Yes, The CF stuff was from PolyGFX. Perhaps you should do the face of that HardDrive rack as well (or acrylic). BTW, did you decide on an acrylic color yet?
The reason you feel pain-in-the-pocket is you are GOING VERY FAST, @ this rate you will be done before me!!
As you said Aqua-Computer does not polish there blocks as well as some other manufacturers. Get some 2000grit paper and get busy!

 

i'm so jealous

wish i had the money for a new case and SLi setup but i have to save for a car

*subscribed*