Hi all, Time for a new pc so im going the whole hog and throwing a swiftech water cooling kit in with it all. To date the main parts include: Lian Li PC70 Swiftech H20-APEX Ultra Liquid Cooling Kit DFI LANPARTY UT NF590 SLI-M2R/G Zalman 600w-HP PSU 2 x 400Gb Samsung Sata II Drives HIS ATI x1950xtx HP AH048AA SATA DVD Butner Rest of the components will be listed when I source them. Mods planned include: Cut out stock grills Cut holes in motherboard tray to route ATX/CPU/PCIE/SATA cables Sealing all air flow holes (above PSU/next to expansion slots) Mount AC Ryan Mesh over top 5 5.25 bays and over two of the 3.5 bays Redesign LianLi switch panel on the front Polished aluminium case feet (more to come) The water kit is my first real go, have dabbled a bit in the past. I wanted to make it so when I need to I can take the whole kit in and out through the top of the case (which has allowed me to get it all set up and running now then move it to my cupboard for leak testing, then when the rest of the cuts are done it will be right to move back in and ready to go). I'd like to let everyone know that my Girlfriend Lorna is the creative backing on this project and she is a gun with a dremel as you can see later in the thread! Stay tuned for her case next year! Time for some pics. Radiator and Res mounted Hole cut in roof All assembled with grill WC System installed No more bubbles! More to come soon.... Paul
Got some work done today, went to get my case feet - 19cm long 1cm squared brushed aluminum cupboard handles but...they were out of stock, maybe next week! Ended up moving my water cooling gear out to a tub and into a cupboard to leak test until im ready for it, it was about 12 bolts and it all came apart no worries out through the top of the case. Had to tighten all the water barbs into their blocks and res which was a pain but all good now! Decided on a white colour theme, nice and simple so converted the led's in my fan controller to white - sorry I didnt get a pic of it running... Mounted my fan/light/led device onto the outside of my floppy disk cage and trying to figure out what the best way to bring the cables from the fan controller out through it are. Started to paint my brackets that hold the Radiator in place -they don't quite fit in the pictures in the first post. Also painted the aluminum that will be used to block the excess air holes (above the io and psu) and theres also a fan bracket from a antec hard drive rack that will be used on the back of my cage. Plans for the next few days include cutting holes behind the motherboard for the power, sata and ide cables. Also want to cut out a hole in the 5.25 cage near the res so you can see the water level - see what happens. Any comments/thoughts? Paul
Thanks for the comments. OK bit of work done this weekend, not a huge amount. Cut the holes behind the motherboard/CPU and 1cm out to allow for atx, pcie, cpu and sata's to come from. Its still very rough but it will all need a brief sand and cleanup before hardware is going anywhere near it. Also toyed around with some ideas for the fan controllers and decided on this but its subject to change when all the fans arrive (this week I hope). One molex into the controller on the inside of the floppy cage then the rheobus will be powered by that running my 120mm fans. If it can cope with the power going through the circuit it will stay - all will be sleeved in the end. Rest of the work on the weekend was fiddling round with power and where it will run, ive decided to bring one lot of 12v down to a power distribution block and disburse it to the hard drives/cdrom and fans from there. The whole concept of this machine is for a day to day gaming machine, i have another machine (small form factor) as a server with a tonne of storage in it. Any comments would be greatly appreciated. Paul
supra55: The fan controller came from PCCaseGear just over a year ago, I havent being able to find them since sorry. CustomH: 80mm fans will be Zalman because they can be, the 120mm fans will be skythe fans.
Wow man, looks like this is going to be one good mod! What about a white case with blue/green LEDs instead of just a plain white case with white LEDs?
Thanks for that. I am very plain and like everything to be as clean as possible. The innards will be aluminium with the black cable braid and assorted black panels (floor far side panel and some of the blockers im using to stop air coming into the case), and white lights and white data cables. Sorry to disappoint - originally was going to be green and white but it didnt do it for me in the initial stages....
wow, this case looks good, i had a choice of this case or the case i bought (lian li G70B) only im not brave enough to cut my case in different areas, so my system is running a little warmer as the watercooling is getting cool enough air Either way, looks good fella, keep it up. Sam
Being pretty flat out lately with work however my motherboard the DFI LANPARTY UT NF590 SLI-M2R/G has arrived and ive purchased my RAM 2gb worth of OCZ DDR2 PC2-8800 Gold Dual Channel. Ill hold off a fortnight or so from getting the CPU and hard drives. Due to costs I have a cheap and nasty X800XT that ill use until I can source a set of Nvidia cards. Thanks for the comments! Also - hooked up the fans tonite to see how loud they would be as well as to make sure the controller could handle it in the current configuration. Well it works! Who said white wasnt cool! Just need to kill that red led! Paul
boo!. hurry up and change out that red LED!. white is infact, the coolest. apart from that nice job. too bad to swiftech warrantly only covers that green *vomit* coolant. ohwell, the dremal work looks fantastic, some clean cuts. keep it up. *subscribed* -BaRbZ
Alrighty - more work done over the last couple of days nothing really to write home about but hey! I have ordered my hard drives - two 400gb Samsung Sata II drives soo much storage! Also looking at a new HP dvd burner which is SATA not IDE, Costs about $150 but to get rid of the IDE i can deal with it! Ive painted all my gear with clear coat so it looks semi respectable. Ordered and cut apart a Scythe bay cooler, basically wanted the frame as it will sit hidden behind meshx in my top three bays. Cut a hole out in the top so you can see the res through the window/mesh panel - more on this idea at a later date. Als0 the res will be lit from underneath with...you guessed it white LEDS! Ill post a pic of the white light and the green water - actually looks very good and not over the top (this is why I didnt choose a green/white lighting scheme). Breakout box about to be mounted, and im going to print this out and run some ideas for cable management over it today, will endevour to scan it to show you but please dont hold your breath. Thanks all for the comments! Keep them up! Paul
