Starting my custom Loop.. little advice.

OK I added some parts to the list I need your approval on!

Mayhem Pastel coolant 1 Liter ... got 2 of these to make sure I had enough.
XSPC T fitting with needed fittings to make it work for drain area
Bitspower Valve for drain area to make for easy draining
Small plastic funnel

From what I read I do not need to use the Silver Kill Coil with the Pastel coolant from Mayhem. This true?
 
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Hey OP:

Here's some stuff I learned (w/pics) though my conversion from AIO to my first custom loop...

First... You will likely need more/different fittings than you originally planned. Especially if you are using multiple radiators. I'm using a 3 x radiator setup. This was the 1st attempt:


You can see that I had no nice way to connect the top 360mm rad to the front 420mm rad. I needed some 60 degree fittings, which I had to order. I didn't want any downtime gaming so as a stop-gap I had to run a really long piece of tube to get it kink free. Also some other tubing could be shortened with angled fittings as well, but again I had to wait on parts to arrive.

You can also see that the white compression fittings between the 2 x video cards were a lousy fit. I can't remember what brand they were, but the tubing was a really tight fit because the barb on those fittings was slightly bigger than on the EK (the grey ones) fittings, which caused the threaded half to not work, no matter how much force. I learned not all compression fittings are created equal, because the grey EK ones fit just fine and were really easy to tighten.

2nd thing I learned, is 1/2" tubing is a pain in the ass to work with. For looks (I like a bit "complicated" looking setups) not performance I would like to cool both ramp banks but this would be impossible in this case with 1/2" tubing. I'm also using Primochill, but in the future I want to try 3/8" and see how it looks and if I could manage the ram banks. A side note, even though all the dyes says "non stain" (I'm use Mayhems), they DO stain the tubing. My tubing was permanently purple after only about 2 months. Plan on replacing all your tubing each time you drain the loop or change something.

Here's the setup after I installed some angled fittings, much better looking:



Finally I learned that small bubbles are nothing to panic about, they go away on their own. In the pics here, this is right after first filling the system and there are bubbles in the lines and on the side of the res. All it took to get rid of them was to leave the system running, with the res un-capped. In the morning, the bubbles were all gone. I watched some videos with Linus and to get rid of them he taps the lines with a screw driver and also tilts the system at different angles (with it running). I did some of this but the easiest thing was just to let them gradually disappear on their own over night. I dont think this will work with large bubbles though.

Here's how it looks after I got all the parts (there are bubbles because this is right after filling)




This is it today. Near silent build (fans are all 700 rpm) and keeps temps really nice while gaming:


It was a really expensive and time consuming (I live overseas so everytime I order from performance-pc's, it's an automatic 50 dollar FedEx addon) process but I think you will enjoy building your system. Look forward to pics of the completed setup
 
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Man that looks really good! I just finished up mine and I am very happy. My video card temps dropped 30C under load and cpu temps 15C under load compared to the air cooling I had. Also the setup is dead silent. I run the D5 PWM pump at 50% and fans at 400rpm. Fans and pump will throttle up as needed but gaming and day to day tasks it rarely throttles up at all... only when stress testing. I avoided the clear tubing because I knew it might stain. I am using Mayhems purple pastel nano fluid. Right now I still need fans on my top 240 rad.. I only have my 280 with Noctua Redux fans. I am trying to find a white and black or all white fan that is silent for hte top fans but this has proven to be a difficult task. I a drain valve setup at the lowest point of the loop which I used recently to add the video cooler.. It worked perfectly. It's not as flashy as a lot of what I have seen but I am really happy with it. My idle temps on my CPU went up when I added the GPU cooler but like I said I am still only running two fans on one of the two rads.



 
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Ek sells white vadar fans. 2,200 rpm is the speed, though you could run them at quieter speeds if needed. I have no experience with those fans, but they seem to be well reviewed.
 
tonyftw said:
Ek sells white vadar fans. 2,200 rpm is the speed, though you could run them at quieter speeds if needed. I have no experience with those fans, but they seem to be well reviewed.
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Actually the guys I know who run them are not fond of them. I have been told they have horrible motor noise and some even chirp. I tend to stick with whatever SPCR tells me when it comes to finding a quiet fan. It seems everyone has their own opinion of what a quiet fan is. SPCR guys are kinda like me.. picky about noise lol. Thanks for the recommendation.. they were actually the first on my list to look into.
 
Copyright said:
Actually the guys I know who run them are not fond of them. I have been told they have horrible motor noise and some even chirp. I tend to stick with whatever SPCR tells me when it comes to finding a quiet fan. It seems everyone has their own opinion of what a quiet fan is. SPCR guys are kinda like me.. picky about noise lol. Thanks for the recommendation.. they were actually the first on my list to look into.
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Nice looking build you did man. Is that your first loop? Looks great!

I think you made a smart choice going with colored tubing. Its kind of annoying having to replace mine each time I tinker with it because of the dye staining it. Im hoping I can get 6 months between tear downs. Someone said you could get a year, and someone else told me only 2-3 months. Who knows. I guess we'll see when/if plants start growing in it!

I used to be the same way when it came to fans, all about silence > performance.

Once I went to the custom loop with large side window case, however, I changed. I'm now Looks>Silence>Performance. Yup, I put performance dead last when picking a fan :)

I really love how the Thermaltake fans look. All the fans in my case are theirs. They aren't the best performers but looks-wise (which I realize is TOTALLY subjective) to me the are above every other brand (and they still light nicely as low as 700 RPM).

Cell phone pic so not the best quality:
 
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