Antec Kuhler 920 Install

[rocky928]

I somehow happened across an awesome Antec Kuhler 920 thanks to [H]ardOCP and Antec... and it arrived today! (THANK YOU THANK YOU!!) I don't like to keep hardware waiting. In fact, I'd say I have some sort of problem. I tend to not eat, drink, or sleep until whatever I got in the mail is fully installed and tested. I do not feel pain, I do not have a concept of time and there is usually a good bit of sweat involved.

Problem is, my case is older and had no 120mm spots for a fan.. but there sure is a lot of room at the top, and I don't have 50 optical drives so I determined I could EASILY fit this cooler in my case. Turns out I was right! In the end, I have dropped my load temps 25C versus the stock intel cooler on my Q9450 @ 3.23GHz (stock 2.66GHz.) It is conservatively overclocked at the moment, tomorrow I will push it balls to the walls Tonight.... sleep. Basically though... if you have one of these older cases, it is certainly not that difficult to make it work with these units. There is ample room so... do it!

As usual, crappy cell phone pics. Enjoy! Look at that space next to the power supply egging me on:

F#@! magnets???

The steel on this case is THICK. 4 or 5 cutoff wheels ground down to nothingness.

Derp, this needs to go somewhere.

Oh hai.

Nuclear reactor-like water block.. check! Terrible cell phone picture.. check!

 

[BurntToast]

I would have used a hole saw and it would have taken one minute of my time. One hole saw = 50 cases easy If not that then a Jig.

But GG on your mini mod and renovating a case rather than doing the cool thing and buying a new one that you obviously don't need.

Practical mod ftw!

BTW what temp app did you initially run?

 

[rocky928]

I would have used a hole saw and it would have taken one minute of my time. One hole saw = 50 cases easy If not that then a Jig.

But GG on your mini mod and renovating a case rather than doing the cool thing and buying a new one that you obviously don't need.

Practical mod ftw!

BTW what temp app did you initially run?

Yeh, didn't feel like finding a hole saw .. haha : )

Thanks!

I'm running CoreTemp in the bottom right of that screenshot. I was pushing well over 70 to almost 75C with my dirty stock cooler, you can see it isn't going over 50C there. The water temps stay a bit lower. For sh1ts and giggles I maxed out the 120mm fans and instantly dropped the water temp by 7C, so I know if I set the high end of the fan speeds to 50C (water temp) I shouldn't have to worry too much. Woot!

 

[Despotes]

Nice work.
Do you have the fans pulling air in from the outside or exhausting?
I'll install my 920 and new mobo/cpu this weekend. I need to cut a hole in the top too...but with a hole saw. Aluminum should be as butter.

One more thing. Could you hear the water sloshing around in the radiator? I hear it. You'd think all that air in the system would impede it's performance.

 

[rocky928]

Nice work.
Do you have the fans pulling air in from the outside or exhausting?
I'll install my 920 and new mobo/cpu this weekend. I need to cut a hole in the top too...but with a hole saw. Aluminum should be as butter.

One more thing. Could you hear the water sloshing around in the radiator? I hear it. You'd think all that air in the system would impede it's performance.

I have the fans pulling from inside and exhausting, the instructions actually only describe that airflow direction.. but that is what I planned anyway. My case has enough airflow and space where it wouldn't work very well to suck air in from that point.

I might've heard a tiny bit of sloshing but I didn't shake it around because I didn't want to piss anything off.... haha. I guess if it works it works! I wonder how much airspace is actually part of the design versus unintended, just watch your temps and you might pose the question to Antec/Asetek.

 

[Despotes]

I just shot an e-mail to Antec. I hope it's part of the design, but I can't see how air in the system is normal.

 

[mannyman]

Looks good. Good job.

 

[rocky928]

Got it up to 3.6GHz, just had to raise VTT and Northbridge voltage a bit. Backed off to 3.5 and backed voltages off just a tad... we'll see how she holds up! Temps are up maybe 4C from the first screenshots and the fans still aren't even trying on the water cooler. They come up just over 1000rpm and then the temps actually drop a degree or two I'm satisfied.

And yeah, I know everyone else has a faster CPU these days.. but with a quad core and a decent selection of multithreaded apps, I think I can make this system last even longer now by cranking every last bit of speed out of it exactly as I intended to when I first bought it. Ready for BF3 and Duke Nukem Forever (finished when it's finished?) !

 

[JohnHenrySolo]

Looks really good!

Never heard of this cooler...hows it stack up against the H70?

 

[JohnHenrySolo]

Looks really good!

Never heard of this cooler...hows it stack up against the H70?

 

[gorb]

Looks good, man. I also received mine yesterday but I'm not going to install it until I get around to buying a new case :/

 

[Antec_Jessie]

Great work! Thanks for sharing this.

 

[Betauser]

I got mine as well a couple weeks ago, but waiting for mobo and cpu. I already have the Raven rv03 and the radiator barely fits inside raven rv03. nice little mod btw and that cpu still works wonder

 

[AthlonXP]

Nice work, now just a little more time tidying up the wires.

 

[rocky928]

Nice work, now just a little more time tidying up the wires.

I was waiting for that While I'm at it, I'll braid my leg hairs. They are tidied up a bit and it looks better with the case buttoned up.. but there is nowhere for many of them to go. The worst are the 2 80mm fans in the front of the case which require adapters.

There, better looking? heh. I don't normally use those case lights I got nearly free, but I couldn't get a pic of the way the water block lighting looks as the window kept diffusing all the color and not giving me anything nearly what I saw with my eyes. Oh well.

 

[lathode]

Nice dremel skillz. Althought it's kind of funny you left your optical drive in there when it's on rails.

 

[rocky928]

Nice dremel skillz. Althought it's kind of funny you left your optical drive in there when it's on rails.

XD

Thanks I didn't feel like taking the front off yet... haha. Plus it's the last PATA device left in my system, I think a small part of me hoped I could kill it with metal shavings