Ok, so I finally decided to put my new project log here on Bit-Tech as well, hoping to get some more feedback from experienced modders. Some of you may have seen my Gemini project I did before this one. This time I'm using a CM Media 250 case, which I got from CoolerMaster Europe. Aquamedia, the name explains itself: a watercooled media center pc. To keep things simple I have chosen a CoolerMaster AquaGate Mini for CPU cooling, this will be modded to use different (UV reactive) tubing and include a VGA waterblock. The chipset will remain passive cooled. » Project Gallery Hardware » CoolerMaster Media 250 (desktop, black) » Asrock 939S56-M (mATX, PCIe, SiS756, blue PCB) » AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (Venice, S939, 1.8ghz) » Point of View GeForce 6600GT (128mb, PCIe, blue PCB) » 2x 512mb Mushkin PC3200 DDR (CL2, BH6, EL series) » CoolerMaster AquaGate Mini R120 » CoolerMaster RealPower 550 Watt The chassis: As I said I have been running this project log on some other forums for a while now, so I have some catching up to do. Here goes ! The sketches. Obviously these were made in SketchUp. Here you can see what the external will look like in the end. I was planning to mount a TFT panel to it but my 15 inch has some issues so I dropped that. The Aquamedia logo on the top is just illustrative, it will probably go somewhere else. Here you can see the motherboard, graphics card and a bit of the AquaGate Mini (front left corner of the case). The internals: The colors I have decided to be: black as base color, metallic blue decorations (same blue as in Gemini) and white lighting (2x 120mm CoolerMaster LEDfan, 1x CoolerMaster 80mm LEDfan). I got myself some sweet new hardware for this pc. Here's a photo: Next up: I got myself a Cooler Master Aquagate Mini R120. I should have gotten one from CM Europe but they didn't send me one because of the release of the Aquagate Viva. They promised to send me a Viva as soon as they got a new shipment. Same goes for a Multimedia Kit with VFD and IR remote. Plan is to make a hole in the bottom of the case for sucking in fresh air through the Aquagate's radiator. I stripped the case in preparation and removed one of the harddisk cages. I marked the bottom of the case where the hole should be. I also cut a piece of MeshX to use as a grill/filter. I dismanteled the Aquagate Mini: I'll be replacing the tubing with some UV reactive tubing (same stuff I used in Gemini). Project Aquamedia will be on display at the Cooler Master stand at CeBIT 2007 I chose to mount the fan on the radiator as an outblow. I did this because I'm using an Aerocool Turbine 2000 fan which has a 'cone' on top. This way the cone is faced upwards. A classic fangrill got owned by my multitool and is now missing its center. Combined with the Turbine fan it looks like this: Also I finally made the hole in the bottom of the case for the radiator: All mounted in the case: The radiator only just fitted in the case next to the mounting piece for the VFD (which I should get soon). Painting the case... Primer first: Then two layers of semi-gloss black: Also got myself some new stuff: The Radgrillz are for future casemods, not for Aquamedia. So what do you think? It's only a small project and not so very special but I'm again aiming for a good finish and not really going for originality.
Looks like you have a nice, quiet and neat looking media center going there. Dont worry what others think, worry about what you think
nice hardwere for media center.. what about some pictures that the case is assembled and painted? which block are you going to put on the GPU? nice grills, i love it
Thanks for the comments I can't post any pictures of it painted and assembled yet because I only painted it just the day before yesterday... tomorrow I'll have a day off so I'm planning to install the hardware then. Firstly though, I have to test a Cooler Master Mars CPU cooler for a review. The Aquamedia hardware is in my testing rig at the moment. I'm going to use this block on the GPU: It's a UV reactive block from Scaro systems (scarosystems.de, I think they are dead now..). For those who are wondering what my future projects will be...
Bad news.. it seems like the Asrock board is broken I'll do an RMA request asap, hopefully it won't take too long. Meanwhile, I'll work on the mounting of the HDD and DVDRW drive.
Thanks. The case was hanging on the clothes line for spraying. This way I didn't need to cover anything. Gathering everything that came with the motherboard ATM. Can't find the darn FDD cable. Update: Found the FDD cable, but I checked again by doing a fresh Windows install, and the board still seems to work fine.
Another update. My brother has been using my 6600 GT card for a while, but now he bought an 8800 GTS so I got my card back. First I replaced the original cooler with a waterblock. Then I installed it in the case and connected the tubing. I'm not going to fill it just yet. First I'm going to make a cover for the radiator and fan. I'll have to take off the tubes from the radiator in order to mount the cover. Filling the system is probably going to be a pain in the ass, because I'm not using a reservoir...
I've tested the unit before modifying with 10 minutes of Prime 95. I got 32 degrees celsius at high fan speed (very loud) and 34 degrees at low fan speed. 27 degrees idle at both settings. I've now replaced the fan and tubing and added another waterblock, but I haven't tested it yet. I think temps will be around 40-45 degrees, which is good enough for me (not going to overclock my HTPC anyway).
Because there are only 2 3,5" bays an one 5,25" bay while I've got a DVD burner and 2x320GB hdd's for this baby Might make a small reservoir for the unusable 5,25" bay (I removed the tray but the hole is still there) but I have to take into account the radiator is below it, as well as the VFD (which I received this week, only there's a part missing).
