Watercooling Enpoo

It's time to fix my Alienware. It seems to be working OK at the moment (sod's law) but it will go through periods of not starting. It's never been quite right. Bought these the other day, coming Friday apparently.



At first I was going to put it in the Alienware case. However, I am tired of working in it. It's cramped, has an enormous footprint and is almost useless for water cooling. Which I totally wasn't going to do, but then the above came up and I just so happened to have a spare block for TR4 left over (FFS).



I suspect it is the board, or the fact the BIOS doesn't like the CPU much (ES). Like I said, it works, but it's not the most reliable and that causes me serious issues given this is my office rig more than anything else. I design bike sticker graphics on it, do paper work, print stuff and scan etc.

So here is the block I have.



So the first thought was "Throw it in here !"



But sadly once again that thing is a pain to work in and it has no space for any hard drives at all really. Which is important, given this PC has five spinners in it and two SSDs.

I started looking at cases last night. Then distro plates caught my eye. I kept finding a reasonably priced plate, then finding the case it fits is £200. I went to bed figuring I would sleep on it. When I got to mum's I found this.



Then looked at the compatibility list. I typed in "Enthoo" then set price low to high and this was on sale at OCUK for £59.



Total cost was £148, less than I figured I would spend on just a case.

I wasn't quite sure how many fittings I actually had for 19/13 so I ordered four of these too.



Error number one. I could have sworn that rig had a D5. I ordered this.



To put it in, but when I stripped out the rig it was a DDC.



In a panic I phoned OCUK and cancelled the Monsoon kit. Took ages to get through, bloody 30 series pests. They didn't have a DDC top I liked and the EK cooler was £20 so I got these from WCUK.





And the haul from the Alienware.



That was before taking the fans off, flushing the rads and etc (all done now). This was the final tally on fittings. Two are just the shells because the back ends are on the rad still.



But yeah, there's probably enough there to do two loops tbh.

I will update as I build.

 

Board and CPU came today. Thank you very much Seb !

Ordered some bits on Amazon last night. I wouldn't normally go there for extension but it was the only kit that had what I needed (IE two 8 pin EPS not just one)





Because pasting a Threadripper takes literally a whole small tube of paste lol. I also ordered these to put on the red RAM.



Four of.

I have two eloops left in black, those will go into the front of the case in place of the white 200mm. I found some 12v RGB frames too, so they can go on that.

 

Sorted it with OCUK. First thing to do was take the entire chassis apart and change out the front 200mm white fan for two Eloop.



Frames were left over from the Alienware build.

Get rads ready (they have been cleaned) and fit the fans on etc. Then mount the top rad into the roof panel.



Mess



Fit the rads to the case, put the top back on.



Fit distro panel (temp, it still has plastic peel on it) and see if the vert riser fits.



And then tidy up.

 

Quick RGB test. The block is 12v 4 pin also, so that can be ran with these. Not sure on the distro yet, but the mobo has controllers for both thank god.



It's nice being able to use up spare parts I have just had lying around for ages and ages and get some use out of the money spent tbh.

 

Oh and I ran the first tube too.



This stuff is much easier on the finger skin than XSPC.

 

Nice find, got links for the DP?

I've always fancied building a WC rig just never done it.

 

Yeah man

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/phan...ution-plate-with-drgb-lighting-wc-02y-pt.html

It doesn't just fit Phanteks cases. Apparently it fits more, but I didn't want to take a chance. TBH? the way the Enthoo is made I couldn't have picked a better one. It all comes apart. No rivets, all screws, so it's made life so much easier being able to customise the inside layout without using anything but a screw driver.

 

Pump top and cooler got. Not terribly impressed with the top, tbh. It only gives you one option of top feed. Which has made me have to move the res somewhere else. You won't see it, but TBH? I kinda like that. Will give it a more stealthy look.



It's nothing terribly exciting but it gets the job done (that's what she said)



I should stop teasing with board pics. As it stands I didn't fit the CPU until about 3am. I hate doing it, it's terrifying tbh.



It should become law that every motherboard comes with these !



I also fitted a couple more tubes. Sadly unless you fit a GPU into this you need to use a U bend, as basically the GPU bridges the distro. I quite like it though, it definitely looks interesting lol.



And a better look at the back.

 

Did you take the motherboard apart, or did they really think that crooked southbridge sink looked good?

 

Just checked a stock image, they thought it looked good apparently LOL.

 

Board in.



Managed to figure out how to change the RGB on the GPU, so that has been done now.



And the state of the 2x3m room I am using LOL. I can't wait for this to be over, then it's a trip to the dump for me.

 

I actually used common sense for once

I figured that before I cut the case up and then found out it wouldn't work I should actually try the GPU to be totally sure.



It worked. Let cutting commence.

 

Another marathon session. It doesn't look like I achieved much, but I did. Basically the big panel with "Phanteks" on it came out. That meant removing a lot of the case again.

I've found a home for the pump. I've also plumbed it in.



The hose just sticking out? ignore that. To do the fitting up properly you need to remove that Phanteks panel. Hence whilst I was in there I decided to run that hose (obs far too long) so I wouldn't have to go back in there just to run that hose.



I need to make a mount bracket now. Shouldn't be too hard.

 

Hah !

so the case only comes with one SSD mount. Loads of positions to mount them, but only one mount. I have two 120gb SSDs I use in RAID 0 for booting, and a Firecuda 2tb 2.5". So I needed three. Problem is those brackets are £10 each.

@Arboreal just pmed me talking about cases so I had a dig in OCUK's B grade section. Whilst I was there this thing caught my eye.



£5.99 shipped. I do believe that is me sorted.

 

I thought about that. The only issue with it then is returning the water to the res. So if I did that I would have to go from the distro plate back to the res. IE all of they way across the case. As it stands I go from the rad to the CPU block, then from there into the distro. Which is about the cleanest I can do it.

There's a very high chance I will be putting "a" GPU under water in there too. It has enough cooling. So this way all I would need to do is remove the U pipe and put the GPU in. Otherwise I would pretty much have to redesign the entire loop.

I will most probably also put a hard line in there which will be much tider. It won't cost much (two fittings and some tube) and will be a good way to have a first go without committing to the entire rig.

 

TBH I'm not terribly worried about draining. It's always very easy with a couple of towels on soft tubing. Just stick a pan/jug under the lowest point (where it goes into the 120 rad) and blow lol. Just make sure to seal up the plugs, or you get a face full as I found out when meeting a forum chum back in January hahaha. What a tit

I want black coolant. It looks like oil. So I will probably get some clear and some black and run it clear to test it, then drain it out and add the black. Mayhem now make coolant that sounds exactly the same as EC6 (IE not pastel, no chalk in your rig etc) and the base is made up of PG anid most probably VG also.

Alphacool do the same one, only it's £3 more. But yeah, either way I kinda like the sound of that. Sounds pure evil.

 

First Corsair SSD I have bought in years after numerous failures. I hope they have sorted that.



Instead of buying tons of cables and messing around.



And of course one for the 12v



Just to make life a little easier.



And then I ordered the wrong coolant.



I had put that one in my wish list, before deciding on black UV. So hopefully they get my web note in time.

Back with it now. I can get on later and fit some more stuff.

 

I've an mp510 1TB - it's been solid so far