chillin like villians: rev n roli's water cooling craze

[revenant]

Greetz peepz... El Rolio and I are starting this joint work log to cover our new water cooling projects, both to be done on Lian-Li v1000s! The project really started back in May of this year when we started PMing each other with messages like this:

"what i was talkin about is you kno the original ref design o nthe 6800gt? those l shaped black pinned ramsinks? like the gpu would be independent with the swimming chick and then a l shaped cooler on the ram. well i have seen pics... oh wait the sheild is back on....

ok ads again. so ive seen pics of WC setups wehre the gfx card has like a maze black for instance and then that l-shape for the ram, satifying the water to gpu... ram separate concept. and plsu i agre with what some of the hard gawds was sayin in the OC/water section of the board that its ridiculoous to be payin $120 or supn for those blocks that cover everything. looks damn cool, low profile and all, but its half the price i paid for the card, 75% of the entire WC setup. thats bad bizness baby.

i was lookin at that cooler by the way (the vantec) in a store yesterday... but i measure the neo2 chipset cooler and was like 10 mm, not the 20mm i thought it would be which most others are, and the NB on the neo2 is RIGHT UNDER the 6800... not much clearance."

I'm still not sure what he meant by "the swimming chick" (lol) but the basic idea was to use the reference Nvidia 6800 Ultra heat sink with a gpu water block for maximum independent cooling of the memory on air with the gpu cooled on water... yes!!

So Roli took my idea to hit ebay, but to email the sellers with NV Silencer modded 6800 Ultras to sell us their unusued reference design heat sinks... he scored three of them and I ended up with two of those:

and actually put them on my GTs for the time being

w00t..

So ... the plan was to get our water cooling plans together by end of summer / star of fall... well, that time approacheth! and we're both gearing up for the project again... Here's how I started my end of this:

I ended up selling about $200 worth of goods on the BuySellTrade forums (here) and made used that money to fund the purchase of all of my water blocks!! I decided to go all DangerDen after thinking about a switech cpu block for a while...

The TDX first (from pharmd24), then the Maze4 (from nicepun), and the other lo-pro Maze4 directly from DangerDen... I am also waiting to get a thermaltake flow meter... all these have 3/8s fittings to go along with the Koolance PC3-725BK which I am going to buy next week! (http://www.xoxide.com/koolance-pc3-725bk-case.html no tax for me). Yes - I know it's expensive, and I know it's not the top of the line performer, but it's a good performer, and it's classy as hell, and quiet. Plus with some upgrades I have a feeling I will be able to get this thing to perform greatly. (koolance upgrades on pumps and rads are now available)... I suppose I can upgrade the fans also... la la... anyways...I plan on modding it a bit, so there will be more than just "ok, I put the tubes on, filled it, and turned it on... yay". lol... I promise!! anyways, I love the look of this v1000 exos II combo... so damn sexy...

Anyways... that's all I have for now.. I'll take some more shots of my block tewnight.... then start with the work log posts when I get back from vaca on Sept 12th.. hopefully my case will be sitting on the door step when I get home!

Roli - you can take it from here if you like

 

[1337m0dd3r]

looks good gl with this I'll be watchin

 

[shoney]

yea, i'll be watching too. I need learn a bit more about water cooling before i try it myself.

 

[el rolio]

first off rev, what i meant by swimming chick is the nvidia artwork on the metla plate covering hte cooler; you know: the nvidia logo chick hahaha. anyways onto my blurb:

so you kno, we love lovely cases, love to wire them up neatly, love to see other's work etc. i mean this is the reason im on hardforums so much, just to leanr and see pretty pics! so anyways shortly before i began pming rev, i began considering water cooling cuz i wanted to clean up my rig, plus be able to quiet it down. im a silence freak and after a spring season of stealths, xp-90's and arctic nvsilencers, i still thought it wasnt quiet enough.

what to do? oh WATERCOOL! so i loved swiftech's stuff, plsu it was in my price range. began researching, and after seeing other's WC rigs like thisisglen specifically, i began thinking of cool ways to do my gfx card as well. one thign i remmeberred seeing was these awesome ramsinks thati thought came with certain gpu blocks. after searching every e-tailer i realised it wasnt sold with naything. all you usually got were ocz ramsinks. anyhoo, it then dawned on me that what some folks did were use the STOCK ramsink assembly from 6800ultras and GT's. well i thought it was beautiful and smart at teh same time. those lil pins sticking up, with a water block in the center: awesome. shortly after that is when rev and i began pming each other about diff things and ffwd to now this is where we are at.

i wanted the storm kit. i wanted a good gpu cooler and i wanted blue fluid runnin thru my computer's veins. as i was planning and saving money i was lucky enough to come up on ozziegn's thread about his storm kit and after a lil problem he ended up selling it to me:

a detailed shot of the Storm waterblock. the second shot will show how nice and purdy the waterblock's surface is AFTER the fact that I had to lap it with some 1000 grit wet/dry sandpaper. the waterblock originally came with some sort of stain or residue which is something that shouldve been caught by Swiftech's Q/C dept before the damn thing left their plant. oh well, I cleaned it up so it wasnt that big of a deal.

ok. so the kit was being mailed off to me awesome. i guess it was time to aquire everything else right? i ended up getting myself a maze4 gpu block as well:

and once those main components were done with it was time to get the extras! make plans! yay!

....until next post: i shall show you the work of day 1 including cutting, planning and building hte loop for fill'n'bleed.

 

[g33zy]

about damn time boys....

You know i'll be active in here....

g33z = /subscribed

^_^

 

[revenant]

testing orange for a log data text color. /me likes

 

[revenant]

I like what this guy did with the lucite top of this cpu block... I think I will do something similar.

http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1027519346&postcount=16

freaking nice

 

[revenant]

Okeeey... I got some decent shots off tonight... I think I need a better camera, but it takes ok pictures.

First off, the used TDX which is lookin real nice... I will lap it just before installation, though. and I am going to do some sort of lighting mod to it... bury a UV led in the lucite or mabe white.. hmmm..

Next up, the used full size Maze4 - also in great shape... I am thinking about getting a chrome top for this one, but not sure that's so important to me now... hmmm... When you crack the seal on the tops of these do they re-seal well? I guess I should get a new gasket, or I guess it'll come with one... I have the torx tip for those little screws tho, but just don't want any leaks... blah blahh... anyways, here are the images

Last up for now, the lo-pro maze (brand new - direct from DD), still with it's protective covering on the copper base... I'll keep that on until installation day. w00t. It's a beatuty!!

I should be getting the Thermaltake flow meter tomorrow... I hope... it's coming from Alaska via USPS... so that's like pony express... slllloooowwww........

 

[revenant]

ok - one more... the TDX changing it's whole latitude...

couldn't resist.

 

[el rolio]

ok - one more... the TDX changing it's whole latitude...
http://venus.walagata.com/w/agunn/wc_tdx_corona.JPG
couldn't resist.

hilarious! ha, man i got so caught up i forgot to take some good detail shots of ma parts. loving yourr posts so far rev!

 

[el rolio]

ok folks, got home from my workout and with the light fading, began un packing everything into the kitchen (and living room too haha - good thing my roomie is away!)

first, the 6800ultra stock HSF bits

my tubing from mcmastercarr (which came overnight! i love these dudes)

then on the table: my new metal files, 7/8" hole bit and center tap thing + some heatshrink and wire loom, all courtesy of home depot!

here is my beaty, the storm block ready for war!

and the rest of the swiftech kit

the bottle of hydrx and water mixture from ozzie (booo green!)

so what am i gonna use instead you might wonder? oh, why not some awesome audi antifreeze! enter: pentosin

and to mix it with, go go walmart! of course no one knew what distilled water was exceopt the pharmacy chick. yay for educated peeps in walmart (liek a needle in a haystack meng im sorry)

what am i gonna mix it in? a new pitcher haha for optimal pouring action into my new funnel

ok, up next froom project day 1: test fittings!

and if you want to see the whole photo gallery of hte project, head on over to http://mail.kilter.com/ftpclients/matthew/storm_day1/

 

[Majin]

JUST AWESOME GUYS!

Having two of you posting in here makes it packed with cool stuff.
I know I will be watching this for its duration!

 

[el rolio]

ok, so i brought my comp into the kitchen to begin work, so call this "before shot, by the kitchen light"

and here are a couple shots of the comp as i break it down n stuff

now, its time to put hte WC kit parts to see if my plan for hte loop works and of course to cut hte tubes to size

but oh noes! i wanted to have the tube from the res back to pump be completely hidden, but as you can see there the barb to go to the rad is blocked by the floor of the component section. oh crap! so after thinkin about it for a bit, i decide on a diff routing of the tube from the res to the inlet barb of the pump

so now the outlet barb pumps thru the pre cut case hole and the inlet barb faces the front of the case where i will have the tube run under the hdd's and up the backside of the case. yay.

time to test mount the rad

hmm, so this is where the barbs of the rad line up:

that means i have to cut thru the grill and also THRU a pci slot. oh k.
so, i got my sizes all seet and cut with generous length to be safe. heh, its liek 2 of each length or supn

a lil pic to make it easy to remember which front panel button goes where

and out to the deck we go! here are my assistants. polo sunglasses as eye sheild not pictured here

here is my "workbench"

and here is the finished work. i wanted to make holes for psu connectors as well at the same time and make some space ffor wiring to go up the backside of the drive cage area

now to start installing bits. rad first

after tring once to fit the tubes, i realised microwaved water wasnt softening it up enough. lets brea out the big pot!

ok well ffwd to me boiling and fitting and now we got both blocks attached

but oh snap, the tubes cooled while i was doin all that so lets get em warm again right?

aiit well now that i got that fdone and got the res in the loop is complete! note the color of the tubes, i think steam or just hte heat made em cloudy heh

here is my puuuuuurty pentosin mix. mmmm not-green

and here it is after i finshed pouring in, turning the pump on (GURGLE) and then continued to fill till it was at max level yay

for your viewing pleasure, a couple detail shots of the parts as we test. i ran outta these clips cuz well, i had an extra block in, so i need a couple more

yay. so it was about 2am at that point so i was dead tired. it was also the first so i got paid wooo! time to treat myself to a half hour wait in the hardees line and a burger n shake. i finished at about 3am, was alseep at 3.01am and woke up this morning with the lights on, empty shake cup beside me and all! ha, so i stumble into the kitchen to see how hte loop was doing:

ahh, leakfree in the lovely morning light. say yay. "yay" (sorry is blurry but you know these low light no tripod scenarios make it hard to get a steady shot. heh)
oh and here is the short circuit setup on my psu haha

paper clips 4tw!

ok so until next time folks, have a good day. tomorrow we see more pics of the day2 work where i will prolly heatshrink some fans, clean and mount the blocks, install the mobo, and pretty much get everything in final place. im gonna take my time with the wiring job cuz i am kinda waitin on some parts and moulding. plus i wanna see how things fit together visually with the new tubes in place. so the computer should be up n running for burn in tonight. wewt. as usual you can view the entire day1 gallery at:
http://mail.kilter.com/ftpclients/matthew/storm_day1/

 

[revenant]

first off rev, what i meant by swimming chick is the nvidia artwork on the metla plate covering hte cooler; you know: the nvidia logo chick hahaha. anyways onto my blurb:

ROFLMAO!! *tears* oh yeah... Nalu! but from now on, she'll always be "the swimming chick" for me...

See - you got the swimming chick! I got the funny headed eVGA guy... but I like those eVGA designs for some reason.. lol hahah...

awesome picture taking, BTW - very cool. good macro shots... and smart one of your mobo/case switch and led leads.

 

[revenant]

Roli - nice NICE work mang! damn... ur already leak testing... Well, I'm definitely going to have to get the case to show up on the 12th.... or maybe the 9th... hmmm... no, I want to be here when it gets here... I get home on the 10th as it turns out... anyways...

I love the color of your coolant. I am wondering if I can get some Pentosin from the Audi dealer near by... hmmmmm... Anyways... I guess I can just order it and it'll sit on the porch for a while... I was just trying to avoid having too many boxes pile up on the door step. lol. but the cat stitter can get them I reckon. Did you have to boil your tubes to get them over the barbs, or to bend them without kinks?

PS: how did you know which pins to cross on your 20 pin mobo lead?

 

[qbackin]

subscribed

 

[Hinokagutsuchi]

Lookin' good so far.

What's the ratio/mix for the distilled water and pentosin?

 

[el rolio]

Did you have to boil your tubes to get them over the barbs, or to bend them without kinks?

PS: how did you know which pins to cross on your 20 pin mobo lead?

hey rev i called you a few mins ago, i got a slight wall i ran into with the ramsinks for the 6800.... a wall called "SCREWLESS"

as for the boiling, its to soften it up and slighty expand so i could get it ovver the barbs. remember, my tubing is 7/16" ID whilst the barbs are 1/2" OD which means they are 1/16" larger diameter wise. even with the boiling by thumb and index are still sore from last night.

as for the psu-jumping, i had seen it on websites before but low and behold, it was in the instruction manual. its pins 13 and 14.

as for my ratio, well i get the impression you want 10-15% or supn? i dunno for sure, i guesstimated. i put a buncha distilled water in the jug, then guessed the halfway mark, then half of that then half of that, noticed howm uch space it took up then poured pentosin in until the liquid level raised by that distandce. hows that for a ratio meng?

uhm, also i have to run bacck to the office to get the dremel cuz: the lil notches that stick out on the maze on opposite corners: well one of them catches on the heatsink of the ram. its gotta be sanded down. sigh. IM OFF!

 

[revenant]

Should have known. RTFM! lol

I have the screws... will 2 day them and you'll get them on Tuesday (monday's a holiday anyways). PM me your addy again.

 

[el rolio]

ok the computer wont starrt kinda. it will power on for a few seconts, post and/or go into bios then shut off. ive tried every combination, un plugged things, repllugged things, unpllugged fans, switfched around molex ccombinations, nothing is workin. even moved it back under my desk but still no go. sigh

imm gonna binge smoke now

hopefully wheen i come back someone has some idea for me as to what happens. maybe there is supn you gotta do since its now on water and not fans i dunno. HELP!

 

[revenant]

Holy crap... that sucks... hmmmm... sounds like a power issue... or re-check your PSU lead to the mobo, the 20 pin one and make sure none of the pins got shoved back up in the molex... that happened to me and the pc was sketch... also, start with just memory, cpu, and video card... see if you can get that stable, then add the rest... call me if you want.. i'll be up!

 

[Bio-Hazard]

Try reseating your water blocks. Are you able to see what temps you are running in the bios? And you may also have to connect a fan to the CPU fan header until you can get into the bios to switch off the shut off on CPU fan fail option in the bios.

 

[revenant]

very good call on the cpu fan thing... the bios may just be doing it's job and shutting it down because it does not sense the fan...

and

in other news, the missing screws.

those look like they'd be tough to find at a hardware store...

EDIT:

so back to the problem at hand - I assume you blew all of the metal filings out of your case really well before re-assymbling? Does the machine only run for the exact same duration of time for each power-on attempt?

 

[el rolio]

aiit folks, the one thing i hadnt tried was pluggin in a fan to the cpu header. do i need something on the case fan header too?

as for everythign else:
yes case was commpressed air blew out and wiped down yesterday. had alll day to get aired out. compressed aired it out again today right before mobo installation. no i havent reseated the blocks but i did take my timme with tightenin down on the screws and springs. i didnt max it out or anything.
also i tried diff combinations, unnplugged and replugged the diff molexes everytime, unplugged one of the hdd's, tried sata and ide power cables to hte hddd's. unplugged the dvd drive removed the ocz booster in stages. eventually its fully out now and the atx poower connector is direct to the mobo. even brought up a second machine and jumped the psu and plugged the pump directly to that psu so the machine was runnin on the psu as it was pre WC kit.

so what it ddoes is shut off shortly after i turn it on. so i cant even get ot look around the bios or anything. as far as i can see it everything is pugged in.

anything else folks?

 

[DarkenReaper57]

Did you add any dye or food coloring to get the coolant nice and blue, or was that a result of the antifreeze you used? It looks very nice .

If it is the antifreeze, what mixture ratio did you use?

 

[el rolio]

oh and rev, i think those may be what i have. 4 of them to be exact and though its the correct thread diameter size, you see how the threading only goes up the shafft of the srew a tad bit? well what i fouund is it doesnt make ful contact with the ram chips becuz of it. but if thats the way it supposed to be and that would be the reason those HUGE goops of white thermal passte was on the sink, well then i guess i shouldnt have cleaned it all of.

point of the story: do you ahve any OHTHER srews (i dont think so) with the same size threading? but just longer?

let me kno homie.

BIO! anything else for me? i took another 40 pics or whatever of day 2, but maybe i'll get a pic in here for the right now with the sys as it is now so you can see whats pllugged in and stuff.

 

[el rolio]

Did you add any dye or food coloring to get the coolant nice and blue, or was that a result of the antifreeze you used? It looks very nice .

If it is the antifreeze, what mixture ratio did you use?

nope its jsut the pentosin and onn page 1 i showed what it looks like and i can tell you where to find it but if you google it you will finnd it all over. its audi/VW antifreeze. also on page one is the mixture method i use. apparently there is somme percentages you supposed to use but i forgot so i jsut put in around 15% of the antifreeze to the distilled water.

 

[revenant]

Hmmm... could be the cpu overheating... I guess? maybe a bad seat of the cpu block... as stated before... maybe remount the mobo?

I just ran into road block myself...

"NOTE: PC3-725 systems will fit power supplies up to 6.5" (16.5cm) deep front-to-back. The PC3-726 will fit power supplies up to 9.5" (24.1cm) deep."

My psu is 7.5" deep.... and I am getting the 725... maybe I should go for the 726? Hmmm... damn! well... anyways... this silverstone is one noisy bitch... time to go psu shopping again also... whew... this is going to end up getting very expensive! lol

EDIT: let me look for the other screws...

 

[el rolio]

nah rev, do what i and a tonn of other folks did. we REMOVE the second hd cage by drillin out therivets. its pretty easy and it gives you all the space you need.

oh and as for the cpu. i think its down pretty tight but maaaaybe? i need to get it closer to the cpu? more tigher? can i crush the cpu like that? or not a worry with the IHS?

i know i took care doing the gpu since the core is exposed... and that i was able to pay close attention and tighten bit by bit while watchin the outer rim of the gpu core to see that it made contact.

 

[revenant]

ok - whew... I'll be getting the 40" SATA cables then also.

ok - I am going to unscrew one of the screws from one of my cards to check it out...

 

[Bio-Hazard]

Have you tried the CPU fan header thing yet? I also checked your manual and there should be a place in the H/W Monitor section for the CPU fan settings. Other than that, I'd try erseating the CPU block.
It just sounds like something is getting hot, does your video card have H/W monitoring? If it does, it might also cause a shutdown it it's overheating.

 

[el rolio]

Have you tried the CPU fan header thing yet? I also checked your manual and there should be a place in the H/W Monitor section for the CPU fan settings. Other than that, I'd try erseating the CPU block.

yep ive had the vantec stealth that WAS my exhaust fan plluged into it for a couple tries now. also tried the fan for the 6800 ultra and plugged THAT into the fan header on the vid card.


ok im gonna lay it down and try reseeating the storm. ugh. question: should there be any space at all in the coils of the bolts on the storm? and if not, how far must i tighten it? till it gets tight like all other things we screw into when we screw bolts on computers?

 

[revenant]

ok - here's what I have in my memory sinks

Same as the ones I was going to send you

and here's where I took it from

Definitely the memory sink

I did a double take with these also, but they are the right ones... I used a very small amount of ceramic compound and gave the springs a tug to give them some more potential energy, and it all worked... there does need to be a little section with no threads so you don't crack the pcb by over tightening. Are you sure those are the exact same ones you have also?

 

[Bio-Hazard]

that's something that's not really covered in the blocks instructions. I just set the block on the CPU and just barly engaged each of the screws and then turned in each one a quarter of a turn at a time so to keep equal pressure on each side. I tightened the screws only to the point thet the block was firmly seated and didn't move under light hand pressure. There's still a small bit of space between the coils. It should be tightened down to the point where the top washer on top of the spring touches the spacer inside the spring making it close to a fully compressed spring.

 

[el rolio]

hey rev, lookin at the pics again, you are right, what yu have is different than what i have. the ones i have (which you should also have) have smaller springs firstly AND the threaded bit is shorter by about a mm or 2. so yep. i need those there. 5 if yu can cuz thats how many screws it takes to fit the ramsinks on heh.

yay rev! boo no comp worky!

 

[el rolio]

here is a pic of the steup before i started unpllugging and replugging everything and switchin up leads etc etc. now its much messier and the dddr booster is not in there + fans are attached to the headers

as you can see its pretty large so i might try resize that but its the detail meeeng!

here is links to the other 2 shots if anyone is interested in helping:
http://revo21.com/pc/IMG_5860.JPG
http://revo21.com/pc/IMG_5861.JPG

 

[revenant]

alright... cool... I have 5 of them also. perrrrfect...

I guess try reseating the mobo... maybe... it's bizarre... it's either a power issue from a bad ground maybe? or the cpu overheating? my MSI mobo has no fan on the cpu power lead, it's on one of the others and I didn't need to fuss with the bios to run like that... /me scratches head

 

[SomeoneWhoIsntMe]

Does the antifreeze conduct electricity?

 

[el rolio]

hey bio - you got pm!

 

[el rolio]

Does the antifreeze conduct electricity?

nope. its antialgae, lube, freezes at a lower temp and biols at a higher temp than water and yea, has all the common qualities of the stuff you get with these difff water cooling kits. but its blue, so it wins!