Hello everyone, I've been following this forum for a while and I have to say that I have seen some truly amazing and awe-inspiring modding. Originally, I started my work log in an Israeli forum (my own country). But the feedback there is quite limited and the truth of it is that there are not that many serious modders in my country. Well, at least not on the scale of the people in this forum. This log begins with my long loved air cooled system, I been building air cooled systems for several years now and about 2-2.5 years ago I bought an X58 system on an Asus P6T with an Core i7 920. The overclocking frenzy was soon to follow and I got bricked around 3.8 GHz. A fairly reasonable result from what I seen for the C0 stepping. So I started considering WC, but the risk of leaks, bricked hardware and all the other evils of WC held me back. A few months ago, me and my wife spent our honeymoon in a vacation in the US and we dropped by microcenter in one of the days. Now, there are two major issues I should point out here - we barely got ANY water cooling hardware in Israel, not to mention any store in the scale of microcenter when it comes to computer hardware. I'm not sure for the reasons, but most of the "extreme" merchandise doesn't get imported to our country. Well, suffice to say that I spent about 1000$ that day in microcenter on water cooling gear, CPU, ssd and what not. By the time we were on the plane back home, all I could think of was of my first future-to-be WC system. But things are never that easy...at least not in my experience. As soon as I got home I realized that my case, a HAF 922 just won't cut it to contain a 360+240 radiator internally. Here's the picture of the old goat: I started considering a case big enough to do it, there was the HAF 932, HAF X and ATCS 840, raven 2 and even some of the lian li cases. I would've taken the TJ07 but it doesn't exist at any of the local retailers (and forget about MM cases, you can only make a personal import for them here and that costs about 50% of the value of the case itself). When I realized that a decent case of this size will cost me 300-350$ I started looking for alternatives. While I was pondering this matter, I was also trying to sell this bulky mATX case I had by RaidMax that they call the Ice Cube. I hated the damn thing from day one, and after getting a decent HTPC case, it had to go (bought in the first place as a cheap htpc case solution that could hold 4 hdds at the same time+odd). But after 4 months of trying to sell it for ridiculously low prices I was ready to give up on it and throw it to the trash. And then it hit me one day when I was cleaning my study room - At first, I thought to myself that that must be the stupidest idea I ever had. But after a few minutes, I got to "but what if its possible?" part. Now for a while I was looking for an excuse to do my first mod, but I didn't have the slightest intention of doing anything on this scale. I mean, sure mount a 360 on the roof of a CM 690 or HAF 922, or even with an Antec 1200. That's all reasonable, but to make a Frankenstein case? Well...I decided to start with the basics and gut out the RaidMax case to the bone and see where it goes from there. And so this modding log truly begins about a month and a half ago. This is what it added up to: Originally, I got in the US an MCP 655, Swiftech 240 rad and res, a swiftech CPU block, an EK acetal 5970 (yeah got the card to go with it from before the trip) full coverage block and all kinds of other goodies. However, as I started messing around with the details of a WC system, I started e-shopping for all kinds of missing bits and pieces (the more recent stuff is still on the way). Some of the stuff that we added along the way - an Asus Rampage III Formula , Core i7 950, some QuickDisconnects from Koolance, A top mod for the MCP 655 and some Scythe GT 1850 fans (I'll spare you the original list as its just to damn long to bother with). So here's how it looks before I actually begun - Drats!Not enough room on the table to put it all on display. Oh well...next mod we'll get a bigger table. Then came the pump modding: And here's the modded pump: Then came the 5970's turn: I literally had hell with the screws of this card's air cooler. I actually had one of those cheap excuses of a clock smith's screw drivers' snap its head off while trying to disconnect the air cooling off this monster. A day or so later, I got a better one which did the trick without a problem. Its beautiful in its sheer intricacy alone. But let the pictures do the talking - And presto, WC-ready HD 5970: Then came my first experiences with a Dremel when I sawed off a part of one of the HTPC's walls for the PA120.3 radiator: and connected it with some screws (after widening the holes on the radiator a bit): So thats how a PA120.3 in a Push & Pull configuration with a shroud looks like...evidently I decided to leave it as a pull only configuration simply cause it was to massive to be able to properly work with. I had some serious doubts about the mechanical strength of the entire HTPC case when holding such a weight on just one of its doors. Then came the mounting of the 240 radiator on top of it, and after some adjustments, this is how the top module looked post rad mounting: Then came the hole saw, to prepare a rear door for the top module. I still didn't drill the holes for the fan cause I'm waiting for the SilenX Pro to get over here from the US. But I did manage to salvage the water cooling rubber bands from the Raidmax and use them for tube holes for the modded wall. So you're probably wondering how does a Cooler Master HAF 922/RaidMax Ice Cube look like in the first place? Well, this is how it looks like after reinforcing it with about 6-8 3/16 " screws and nuts, fairly solid and after testing it via "shake test", the table the whole rig is much less unstable then the two cases jointed together are. I also cleaned up and painted black an old P4 PSU I had laying around to make it a WC system only PSU (also visible at the top left end of the Obelisk) Now this is what's left on my to do list: 1) Make an acrylic window for the top module. 2) Complete the WC 1st loop 3) Complete the WC 2nd loop 4) Leak test + bleed WC system 5) Put in some UV cathodes for bling and UV reactive T connectors and Y connectors. 5) Add fans (UV/led) to the system. 6) Boot the system up and pray to god that the thing won't blow up in my face. 7) hole saw some 80mm fan holes and mount them in the rear wall of the upper module 8)Add another radiator? (undecided) Note: I'm acutely aware of how terrible the cable job looks currently. I simply detest sleeving to the extreme sense of the word. However, if I'll fail in finding any creative solution to this, it might become unavoidable. Personally, I'm thinking on some duct tape or something of the sort to take care of the cable management. But...who knows. All to be done in future updates... Feedback is welcome and thanks for your attention and time
Case Mod Project:"The Obelisk" - post leak test update At long last, I finished leak testing the system today, after 4 leaks (WTF?!$#!) the WC system is working and running. Some valuable lessons learned from this experience so far: 1) Silicon is THE material to join perspex with metal (for the window I made). 2) 3/8 ID tubing is much easier to work with leak-wise then 1/2 ID. 3) A Jigsaw is always better to cut straight clean lines then a Dremel. The Dremel is a lovely gizmo for all kinds of things, but for serious rapid work, its a pain in the ass to handle unless you got the hands of a dentist. 4) The simpler the system (minimum adapters/joints etc) the easier it is to work with, leak-wise. Because the various adapters look like they connect tightly doesn't mean they won't leak. And here are the daily results: Sheer agony... I just love shiny LCD displays. Let there be light...eh UV light ! A dramatic angle for effect. I'm getting a red SilenX Pro fan for the hole you see in this one. To give that unique look to this case,
Promise us you will clean up the edge of that window cut. If I were you I'd add 2 wheels to the bottom back, and a single handle on the top. -Think built in hand truck. If you carry it the traditional way, you wouldn't be able to see where you were going.
^^^^^^^^^ wow what a mess of cables and tubing. You have some clean up to do for sure! Will look nice then
if only i could think of a way to get rid of those cables from the power supply...might buy one of those fully modular power supplies like the seasonic x-540 or 500W ultra x4 power supplies. Say, any of you know if its possible to simply snip off the unwanted cables from the power supply? As for the trolly/truck idea - really cool concept but I already got a table on wheels holding the whole rig at about 2 feet height.
At long last, its complete, or almost complete (there's still a 120 rad to add to the GPU loop for the 5970) but that can wait till I have more time and patience. After 3 months I'm REALLY glad to have my personal computer back (and better then ever). I haven't got to update this thread in a while, cause I when moved to install the CPU block I discovered that the backplate and one of the screws were eaten out by rust. So a few weeks passed till I got a replacement from Swiftech but thank god (and Michelle from their customer service) those replacement parts came and finally this build has come to completion. front: side: Into the belly of the beast: Gimme Blood: Just a nice angle... Disco Inferno: Into the belly of the beast 2:
