Case Mod - In Progress Feeding Frenzy: November-11-2009 video card fan installed

I'm getting ready to take a jigsaw to my Aquaduct and it too will get a trip to the powder coater.

Those heatsinks are kinda sorta cool looking in a technological kind of way. While powder coating them sounds fun I suspect that just a flat black would radiate better. Come to think of it does anyone know if there have been experiments as to what radiates heat the best out of: flat black spray paint, black powder coat, or black anodizing?

The CPU cooler is a Cuplex XT with a silver base. For looks I want silver twinplex's (already got one) or aluminum mosfet coolers. I just blew the wad on AC stuff so I got to start saving again for the next shipment of AC stuff that I forgot to order.

 

I don't know about which will dissipate the heat better but if you're looking for a truly, light absorbing flat black then you can't get much better than VHT (very high temperature) paint. It's designed for use on exhausts so it wouldn't matter what temperature the heatsinks reached, it's still going to be less than a few hundred degrees C (hopefully! )

Spray on, allow to dry and it'll cure into a nigh on indestructible totally matt black finish. You can bodge the curing process with an oven if you prefer, works a treat on cylinder heads.

VERRRY nice wiring by the way! I read through the whole thread with my jaw on the desk!

 

Been debating as I got a can of that very same VHT flat black in my modder's cabinet. Actually those heatsinks sans the Gigabyte advertising and the heat tubes look pretty nice.

Thanks for the nice nice on the wiring. Only problem is that anything less than my best is just not good enough when it comes to wiring and looming FF. Just ordered a bunch of black connectors and pins from Performance PCS last night. Hoping it will be here by Saturday so I can get to wiring in the PSU.

Pulled out the Aquatubes last night as well as I need to finish building one more USB cable. The Auatube/Tubemeter assemblies are detachable so that the assemblies can be removed from the electrical and water circuits without creating a big mess. This one for the HD circuit is pretty much done except for screwing it in.



Building one loop can be a royal PITA, but three separate independently programmable loops is what some people call utter insanity. The truth be told I was just admiring how much water cooling equipment is packed into this case considering it is one of the biggest computer cases commercially available. I'm sure glad it has wheels on it because when it is filled with water this baby is going to be one heavy sucker!

 

You'll have no trouble removing the heatpipes.
Even if you accept the efficacy of the pipes themselves, once you see how loosely they are attached to the sinks the whole assembly becomes very questionable.

If your model is anything like mine (GA-EP45-UD3R), you may find watercooling the northbridge problematical.
The hole spacing is wider than normal (@64.5mm) but the die is actually very small (think AMD Barton core)...the stock heatsink is actually gigantic compared to the part it's mounted on.

Finally, any coating on the sink- be it flat black or whatever- will degrade the heat transfer of the sink, IMO.
If you decide to keep it, I'd just leave it as is and screw it down (yours appears to use push pins on the nb sink...mine is screwed down from the factory).

 

the looks of flat black would be awesome.

juz dun paint the contact between the chipset and it would be great. the effect to the tempreture would be minimal

 

I have already looked with my Opti-Visor and it seemed very dubious to me. Makes you kind of wonder if the marketing department has say so over the engineering department so long as minimum cooling is maintained. If the minimum heatsink was only on the board then there would be not enough room to put the Gigabyte name, right?

 

Wiring the 8 pin plug

Well after getting over a slight cold I decided to get busy and do some re-wiring. One of the things a lot of people miss when sleeving or putting in a different color connector are the tools that are needed. Here is a collection of tools I have acquired from computer and electronic vendors.




I think this was one of the first I got, because it was cheap. It also was not a very good tool.




Then I went back to the electronic store and decided to try a more expensive tool. This works okay, but you need to buy all the pin sizes.




When I started to re-wire the square pins found in the main loom going to the MB I used this little jewel, but it was a pain to rock out the pin as you had to do one side at a time.





This tool I picked up from Petras for the 24 pin connector and they told me they break easy so I bought two. Yep, they do break very easily, but they are only about 5$ .




Figured it was time to quit screwing around and buy some good tools whatever they cost. Turns out they are not cheap, but they do the job really well. This one is was about $28, but it works very good and doesn't break easily.





So this is the 8 pin connector that goes to the motherboard. BTW, it uses the same tool that you would use on the 24 pin connector.




My Waldom / Molex tool made short work of getting off the connector.





About halfway through cable sleeving. Each wire is sleeved and heat shrink tubing applied at both ends of the sleeve. This will make it easier to slip it into the main factory sleeve so it looks all nice and proper.





Here you can see the hole the wiring will go through to the bottom PSU compartment. This hole will also serve to feed the 120mm fan wiring up to the front of the case where it will be wired into the Aquaero.





Here we are all done.





I really need my Aquacomputer order as it has the 240 grill in it. Can't do too much more as the case needs to have everything cleaned out before taking a jig saw to the top. I avoid making cuts in the case until I have everything that goes in them. Nothing worse than too big a hole.

 

Just got an email from AC Berlin and my loot will get shipped mid next week by DHL. Hopefully I will see it all here around the 15th of April. Then I can start cutting, drilling, and tapping my way to AC heaven.

 

Just got a shipment today from J-Mag with some AC goodies and I just got a DHL tracking number from AC Berlin. Things are definitely looking up.

 

Still waiting for AC

Still waiting for my AC shipment from AC Berlin. Seems it was shipped on the 8th and arrived into the USA on April 9th. Still hasn't showed up to the West Coast. Maybe I should have suggested they send it by Pony Express? I hope it isn't sitting on some US Customs shelf in God Knows Where.

This is especially bumming me out because I am going into the hospital Thursday for some foot surgery. My doc says I could be there for up to two weeks so there won't be any modding for a while.

 

Still waiting for my AC gear.

However, I guess it really doesn't matter as I have been in the hospital now for five days. My doc told me today they were going to send me out to a rehab and it would in all likelihood be a 6 week stay before I get to go home. So it looks like FF is going to be on hold for a while, again.

Added:

Appears that AC products arrived today in Long Beach (Tuesday). Just trying to figure out how to get it as they want my signature before delivery.



I wonder how open the nursing home would be to me modding my box while I am there?

 

WOW, you did leave for a while didn't you. I just read through the whole log and I must say you have done some fantastic work. You were doing the MurderMod sleeving (to an extent) way back in 2005 lol. Awesome mod mate, I can't wait for more.

 

wow..
i just worked out how to sleeve a simple way.. so slow sometimes..

thanks

 

Yeah, I did pursue some other ventures for a while, but I'm back to modding as I find it entertaining.

That's one of the reasons I try to describe things so others can follow a simple trail.


Well my AC shipment showed up, but it was missing my 6mm tubing! Seems some US Customs agent opened the box and didn't put it back in.

I'm also going home this Saturday afternoon! I can't wait to bolt together my silver XT for the CPU circuit and the TwinPlex Pro's for the GPU's. I got the conversion kits to make my TwinPlex Pro's into TwinPlex XT's. Just have to figure out which one looks the coolest.

 

Finally felt like doing some water cooling mods after recovering from the last surgery merry go round. Just got told by my doc that I have to go have some urgent foot surgery June 2nd.

 

Hey, TN, how's your foot? We miss you!

 

Foot is almost healed up and the doc let me out of the wheel chair last week. Now that I can get around better I just ordered a new radiator (Koolance 360 aluminum). Once I get it I will be cutting the top of the case to fit. Then I can at least get my video card cooled decently.

Still trying to figure out what to do with the hard drive cooling. I had two of my 74Gb Raptors fail in the last 30 days. Thank WD for 5 year warranties. I have been thinking of ordering some of the flat AC HD coolers.

I was carousing through my closet the other day and I think I found enough AC P&C 6mm tubing to finish off this project after the US Customs Bureau snagged 10 meters of the stuff from my last AC shipment.

 

Good to hear that you are healing up all ok. An aluminum radiator? Aren't you worried about galvanic corrosion?

 

No worries.

Been running mixed metals (anodized aluminum, silver, copper, nickel, and brass) for years without a dot of corrosion. Ya just got to use existing well known scientific knowledge.

 

First time I mixed alu and copper my alu block top corroded within 3 months, just my luck lol.