Case Mod - In Progress HP Blackbird 002

Can't wait to see some pics mate. GAMMods have the PA140.3 so keep an eye out over there, Greig will definitely get the 140.2.

 

@ Jhanlon: thanx for the wishes Mate, and the Possies - luv them Always nice to have a b/day in August...hehe - one year older, but still feeling exactly the same.

@ The boy: Will keep an eye out at Gammods, or email Greig and ask him to email me once he has stock - will most likely do the 140x2 then, let's see.....

 

Ah, I have received the rest of my BP goodies - so will finally give you the pictures you're waiting for - the loops are semi-complete, as I missed on a few critical BP fittings, and without them, the end result was not what I wanted.

So, tonight I will tackle this, and by tomorrow I will be finished - nice.

Even got 4L of demin water from Bunnings - yeay - no more excuses!

 

Can't wait mate .

 

Agreed! Bring it on!

 

god it looks like someone caught them with their pants down or something

 

That's basic 'possum defense. When they get older they have a mouthful of wicked teeth, and I swear they can detach their jaws.

 

Hello Guys,
Ok, as promissed, a few photos of my recent progress, and evolution of the waterloop to a useable state.

First, a few pictures of my testloop, to make sure pump was workine fine, and that the Feser 240mm would actually keep the dual quad Xeons, as well as HD4870X2 cool.

First, an overview:



a Close-up of the reservoir:



another one:



the pump:



and the bottom of the graphics card:

 

Ok then, this was first stage of watercooling complete, and basic tests done, making sure everything was working as it should, and that all components fitted as it was supposed to.

Onto second phase, which commenced as soon as I have received my Bitspower fittings, and a few other small items. At this point in time, I could not complete the tubing routing, as even though I ordered a significant amount of BP fittings, it still was not enough - unfortunately you always discover as you progress

With that said, it took me to the stage where I could visualize what I still required to finish the tubing routing.

But, I am running ahead of myself, so here is the second stage routing, with all the BP fittings I had by then.

7/16" Tygon, and nice BP 45deg fittings to the waterblocks:



a few shots of the acetal reservoir, replacing the old Swiftech MicroRes:



and another one:



Here one showing my intentions with the graphics-cards - one problem here is the fitment of the OEM middleplate, and frontdoor, which will not fit, as tubing and/or fittings would interfere - and hence the reason I had to place an order for a few more fittings, and some extra tubing to finalize this phase:



And an overview of the "final" loop as far as I could go:

 

So, the OEM HP Blackbird case comes with some puny little unit by Asetek, with a very thin 240mm rad, all-in-one cooling solution which is probably no better than decent air.

Tubing would have been 10mm, and HP designed this case to pass the tubing through from the CPU to the GFX underneath the mid-plate divider, by running them through the midplate support bracket located immediately below the rear 120mm fan....

This is the bracket, which I need to modify to enable 2x BP fittings to fit side-side:





and here it is mounted after modding:

 

And now, I have finally received the last BP fittings needed for this mod, ok, admittedly I might have been better off getting another 1 or 2 45deg fittings, but with that said, things worked out well - ok, maybe 1 or 2 more 90deg bents than I would have liked, but, overall flow is pretty decent, and system stays cool.

Graphics, with everything running full-tilt, driving 2560x1600 in Farcry 2, 1 cpu core driving FC2, the other 7 crunching SETI, gfx goes 42 deg C, and CPUs are doing 35-38 deg C.

Ambients about 25 deg C. Not to shabby.

But, pics.....

New 90deg Elbow on the gfx card to better route tubing from 2nd CPU block:



Fittings passing through modified mid-plate bracket:



Showing from underneath the mid-plate:



another one:



Top-side with tubing connected:



Showing the pump inlet passing through the mid-plate in the fron of the case:



And showing the general layout of the tubing:



and another one:

 

Something about the Pumps: I have decided a while back I would (eventually) replace my trusty MCP 655 Vario with something hopefully better - dual rev 3.2 Laings on a Watercool dual top:



and here.....



Well, this pump will eventually find it's way into this setup, but only after I perform the final mod, ie a new 140x2 rad once it's released......I see the 140x3's are available, just a bit longer to wait - this Feser 120x2 is doing a wonderful job, and no real reason to replace it, other than aesthetics, as the HP case is pretty wide at the top, and shaped something akin to a trapezium....

With that said, for now, I will stick to my MCP 655 Pump, and did a few quick mods to assist with easy assembly of the waterloop:



and



For those that don't know, I fitted custom in- and outlets, but opted to keep the standard top - it flows pretty well, and the only real disadvantage compared to aftermarket tops for the D5 would have to be the moulded in- and outlets.

The BP compressions makes life a lot easier.

 

As mentioned earlier, the "front-door" on the BB case was going to present a few problems with tubing routing, so I had to do a small mod on it too:'



The inlet 90deg elbow on the 2nd gfx processor on the HD4870X2 was interfering with the front-door card retainer bracket - as a result, I had to perform a small mod:



and here is the retainer bracket fitted back to the front-door....



Giving us a clean look with the door fitted:



and here:



Please take note that immediately adjacent to the fron-door is the mid-plate, seperating the top cpu chamber from the gfx and SAS raid cards - it is not that visible in the pics, but, it can be observed where the pump inlet from the reservoir pass through it....

Another thing, I will still finish the cover plate at the bottom of the case, will be done next weekend though, as this is how far I got.

I will also finish the cover plate at the bottom of the case, will be done next weekend though, as this is how far I got.

There's still a fair bit to do on the cabling too, as that is not finished yet - in case anyone wondered...

Feedback would be appreciated.

 

The plumbing is much better mate, looks great, really neat, however I wish you used black Tygon. The clear looks good but personally I just don't like seeing clear tube with clear coolant lol and the black tube would match the interior.

 

+1 for black tubing but I think it's really awesome nonetheless.

Great work

 

Hello Guys,
Thanx for the feedback

I will (eventually) replace the clear Tygon with black tubing, problem is I could not find the proper tubing from the supplier this time round, and hence the reason I di not mount the dual-DDC setup either at this point in time.

I will need 1 or 2 additional BP fittings too, just to tidy things up in the gfx area, and will then substitute with black 7/16" tubing. I have a good idea on the tubing routes now, and will optimize from hereon in.

You know how it is with a casemod, it just never gets completed - we always tweak and fiddle.

 

Just a short breakdown of components/parts used for this build:

System Components:
SuperMicro X7DWA-N server board
2x Xeon 5430's at 3gig (These are HP OEM's picked up from one of my suppliers)
4x 2gig Kingston 800 FB-Dimms

ATi HD4870X2 graphics

HP NC 6170 Optical Network card

HP P800 SAS Raid controller
5x HP 146gig 2.5" SAS harddrives
HP ML370 T05 SAS drive cage

HP 160GB AIT Tapedrive (Not mounted yet, need to revise reservoir mounting location to make way for this drive)

Panasonic DVR-K06 Slotload Slimline drive

PC Power&Cooling Turbocool 1KW PSU

30" Apple Cinema Display

Watercooling:
Feser 240mm Radiator, MrBean custom mounting brackets (Will be replaced by Thermocill PA140.2 once available, and if I'm in the mood of fitting it)
Dual DDC Rev 3.2 Pumps, Watercool Dualhead Top (currently using my modded MCP655 Vario pump though)

2x D-Tek Fuzion Rev 2 CPU waterblocks, mountings for Socket 771
2x Swiftech MWC60's for the gfx card
Swiftech Caldera heatsink for graphics ram and v-regs

7 feet (approx 2.1m) Tygon 7/16" tubing
Loads of Bitspower fittings
Bitspower 5.25" Bay reservoir (mounted vertically in BB's 5.25" optical drivebay)

Cost:
To scary to even think about it.

Still needed:
7x pci retention plastic clips
1x original front-button panel

A few short words on this - I actually have more HP components in my build-from-scratch BlackBird than one originally supplied from HP. All my SAS drives, drive-cage, AIT Tape Drive, 2x HP Xeon CPUs, and P800 SAS raid controller are OEM - pretty happy with the fact too, as HP's server components have served me well over the years.

The SM X7DWA-N motherboard is a beast, and arguably they produce some if the best server boards available today - it is super-stable. Hell, I'm crunchin SETI (7 instances) and playing FarCry 2 at the same time, all settings max'ed out, driving a 2560x1600 resolution, and not a single hiccup.

Now, that's priceless

If anyone can help me with an original BlackBird front-button panel (I don't need the PCB, just the plastics), I would really appreciate it - I would buy the thing, guys, please help me out making this mod worthy.

 

That's some seriously nice gear .

 

looking good as always.

I followed some of you project logs when you still posted on PCF

 

Bean old chap, email me the CAD file for the front panel and i shall see what i can do. I can open most CAD formats.