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

[revenant]

Roli - interesting you talk about only hearing the fan from your modstream... my SS zeus psu is loud and I bet that will be the loudest part of my new build... *sigh*... I guess the Enermax noisetaker 600 would be an interesting and quiet alternative... hmmm... well, one thing at a time here for me... have you volt modded your 6800 core to 1.4v ? just curious... I am thinking about doing that to my GTs to get those cores to 450+ with the water cooling... we'll see how it goes at 1.3v first... but I have a feeling I will hit a wall at 425 or there abouts, a voltage limitation. Anyways, just speculating. I gotta get some images of my new case in here soon!! will do that asap.

 

[el rolio]

oh so yo uare back and you have gotten all yer parts? WOWOWO pics man!

anyways, so you askin me about volt modding, yu kno ryuji mentioned that to me the other day. i only thought it was done for GT's from 1.4 to the ultra's 1.5 with the risk of the volt regulator thing being fried or something like that. i didnt know there was a way to volt mod the NU to GT kinda thing too... uhm, i'll consider it seeing as how my temps never rise passt 43º on the gpu hahah and idle at like 39ª. even last night i was messing around with it and there is some vid card overclocking to learn about here.
for instance, i can push it to 400 easy, so i have it there. i hear its better to push the ram as the bandwith is what the gfx card REALLY needs, so right now i got it up to 875 i think (from 750) but anything higher on the core and it seems like i get SLIGHT corruption. not the crazy kinda funny colors bu random flashes of angled lines on screen. kinda like the tear yu get with vsync off, but with a lil black in there too. so i figured ok, this thign aint gettin power but i refuse to push more than the 1.65v to the agp slot.

so i guess that means a volt modd wouldd be the trick eh? we gonan have to talk about this more. plus i gotta learn about the throttling aspects of hte card or how to make sure i OC the 3d properly amnd if i shoudl use supn else besides the driver coolbits OC'ing.... etc etc etc.

(ps i do all my comparisons with 3dmark03 for visual check, and score check, since its gfx heavy but yet still high enough scores to get a wider range of difference. a larger scale per se)

 

[FadedSpark]

you can bios mod for more volts.. 1.4 is where it tops out safely i believe

1.3 isnt an option though, also, use nibitor for bios editing

 

[el rolio]

hmm i need more info before i jump into that pool. i mean unlocking the pipe i know was safe. either it worked or it didnt. and it was reversible.

this bios modding volt raising thing..... is it safe? heh

 

[FadedSpark]

volt mods are iffy at best, the bios mods either work or they dont, if your GOING to go down that route, backup your bios, hell double and triple back it up for safety and use a down clocked 1.4v ultra bios, its just easier... and your temps will increase a substantial amount i think

 

[el rolio]

volt mods are iffy at best, the bios mods either work or they dont, if your GOING to go down that route, backup your bios, hell double and triple back it up for safety and use a down clocked 1.4v ultra bios, its just easier... and your temps will increase a substantial amount i think

good thing its watercooled then?

 

[FadedSpark]

yea, the watercooling should help a lot, but i dont know if its even worth it, you have a 6800 ultra already dont you roli? rev has the dualie GT's... i think they are both 1.4V bios's so bios voltmodding may not be an option...

 

[el rolio]

oh no sir, i have a bfg 6800 OC agp, aka a vanilla 6800 that has its pipe unlocked. stock clocks are supn low like 350 / 700 but now i been running like 400 / 875.

 

[el rolio]

aiit some more pics, i took today after puttin a bezel on and a couple other things

 

[FadedSpark]

ooh la la! vanilla i love my vanilla

volt mod would take you from 1.2 or 1.1 volts to 1.4 with a GT bios i believe, i can look if someone can find me a GT bios for an AGP card

(if anything fries, this is the disclaimer ) i take NO responsibilty if you fry your shit/ kill your bios

according to nibitor, the BFG 6800 OC has a 3D VID of 1.4v... a GT has 1.3 and an ultra has 1.4 i think... (havent checked)

the 2D clocks on the bios i looked at are 300MHZ in 2d only, jumps to 350 in 3d... and throttled back the voltage on the core drops to 1.2... wierd bios indeed...

[edit2] since i dont feel safe making bioses for other people, id try talking to someone who knows there shit a little better than me and ask if they can whip one up for you, youd need to use an NU bios though as the memory types differ...

as for the case mods and stuff, only LiLi case i like and it looks GREAT

 

[el rolio]

thanks man for the compliment and yea this will be my current research job, to find out more but what you jsut said is very educational and i would liek to find a gt agp bios and put it on for real.....

let me know!

 

[FadedSpark]

a GT bios wouldnt be safe i dont think as the ram differs between NU's and GT's (ddr - gddr3)

and i dont exactly trust the dell im on right now (friends house)

if you want ill throw you my email for msn or w/e and we can talk without having to spam the forums

 

[el rolio]

yhpm

 

[revenant]

Ohhhhh kay!! wow... finally.. here... with pics and progress... had to watch football and have a few brewskis... I am still on vacation after all. Anyhew - so here goes..

this is the veiw I left... Vancouver Canada.... (28th floor Sheratin)

and this is what I came home to:

DOH! ok - well, I had to come home sometime, and this made it much easier. lol

So, I didn't waste much time...

tools: check!

fans: check!

cat: check!

ok - to it here - I am just going to add the post and edit in the verbiage from here... so sorry if some of these pics have no words just yet...

damn I love this case!!

Whoa.. that's a lot of coolant! lol

ok - first thing, make some space for the psu! my Zeus is 7 inches long... bigger than the avg psu I think...

Ahhhh much better...

ok - for some prelim wire management... gotta get things cleaned up a little before I get to the coolant lines or any of that...

move the speaker way out of the way...

sleave the USB and firewire cables, just for grins....

OK! muuuuch better... now I can start thinking about my coolant lines, etc... need to put a fake mobo in there so I can get some ideas on what my runs will be like...

check my uber cool video shelves! lol... well, this was the best thing I could think of doing to get a real idea of how my lines would be like and be able to leak test in psuedo working angles.

I had to use a LOT of tape to get those shelves sturdy enough to hold those blocks... still they bowed a LOT...

here I had such a short run from the lower gpu block back to the rad that I needed to use the realy nice Tygon tubing instead of the not so nice Koolance stuff... the tygon was WAY more flexable and the walls were nearly twice as thick...

See how they look side by side... that Tygon rawks!!

I ran to the hardware store and got a few real hose clamps, just for grins... these ones are very small and seemed to work great. With the squishy thick tygon a zip tie is enough to get the tubing secure over the barbs, but with the koolance tubing I had to use the clamps. I have all tygon for my blocks to blocks runs, and back to the rad... the ony section of koolance tubing which is on any block is on the intake of the cpu block (TDX) at the start of the chain.

just one thing before connecting the tubing... lap the TDX!

ok this looks good. I can get ready for the leak test very soon now!! just need to put down the drip pads...

mixology is an art...

I used the roli method of using roughly %15 Pentosin and 85% distilled h2o... Although this stuff looks mostly blue, I could see the green/yellow color of the what I am assuming is the ethylene-glycol, sort of shimmering around in the solution when I looked at it from certain angles through the middle of the solution + glass container... strange! Maybe the depth? Anyways, but for all intensive purposes this stuff is blue as a smurf! which is what we wanted.

Pentini anyone???

ok the old paper clip trick to get the PSU to perform for the test...

w00t! ahhhh... time for a drink

ok - maybe not so much... *gag* but it kind of looks like a blue cosmo! heh

leak testing now... no leaks yet... I am getting my 40" SATA cables tomorrow and will get my mobo out, video cards prepped, and all of that in the mean time... whew...

 

[revenant]

Roli - on the volt mod thang... you can try it for a short while and see if if make a big diff... archive your current bios, and edit it, pushing the vcore up one notch... I think the vanillas are @ 1.3v... hmmm... maybe... I used Nibitor to edit my bios when I tried the vmod... I ran with it for a couple of hours but didn't notice much difference... but then again, I was not trying to push 425 with my cores then... the water cooling on the gpu is really good, but also the MOSFET will get very hot, so you will need to have some air on that rear sink! that is, if you try it... anyways... what are you running your gpu core @ now??

oh Hey! nice work BTW! your wire managment is excellent... that's going to be a tough act to follow.

 

[revenant]

lol.. my old machine is looking pretty bare!!

 

[revenant]

one last thing for tonight... I have to say how much that lian-li v1000 case rocks. It's hands down the nicest case I have ever worked with... from the quality of construction to the layout and design for max space and air flow... color me impressed!

 

[altec]

Those are some pretty rigs.

 

[el rolio]

yayayayayayayy. well lookit the time. i woke up 2 hours early for a a drink of water and got to lookin at rev's post and goddamn this is lovely. color me proud. like, with the sleeving and the led fans and the black case and the pentosin i so cant wait to see yours get done. and im very happy you moved that front panel and speaker stuff man i wish i had! i woudla have taken out the floppy cage if i did! and yea the li li..... it rocks, and i take it fr granted i forget how easy it is o use and how great it is cuz i use it now. im sure i'll realise when i get back into some other stuff. (hmm random: shuttles were fun if only for their very specific ways of doing things)

anyhoo more posting by you please, more text too! and when i wake up for real later hahah i can post again!

 

[Heath]

wow I just read that whole thing. Truely awesome guys.

 

[revenant]

W000!! ok - awake now... I could barely sleep. I need to get my SATA cables from UPS and hit the bank... then I will prep my cards and mobo.. oh yeah, and I am leak free baby!! yeah baby.. do I make you randy???!??! heh... j/k

 

[revenant]

Ouhm....
WTF...

lol

heh

not really.. but I have never pulled the heatsink and cpu out at the same time... damn, right out of the closed socket 939!! I used AS5 but must have gotten a really good seal that time. wow.

but I am glad I did not bend any pins... whew..
need tp push it over a little... damn, that Hyper 6 looks like an engine!! those cooling pipes look like the headers from a Buick 6cyl! (grand national)

now to seperate the two...
SCALPLE!! ..uhm, er, jewelers screw driver!

WHEW... ok, I have to get Qtips and my SATA cables now... brb

 

[altec]

Is the CPU ok?

 

[Bio-Hazard]

Be sure to check all the pins to see if they are alll there.............. Check the socket also. Always twist and lift at a angle when removing the sink from the board/CPU.

 

[el rolio]

yea it will be. same thing happened to mine BOTH times.

pre XP90 installation (back in april):

heh

and then also pre STORM installation (week n half ago)
....
ok i didnt take a pic, but i visually checked to see all rows of pins were straight etc

thing is, this time since it happened to me TWICE, i actually started to pull, saw it was coming with the heatsink, and managed to unlatch the lever in the process of pulling hte heatsink up, that way at least it wasnt "locked" down when the processor came off with the xp-90.

no worries mate

 

[revenant]

holy shit... roli, you bled!!

Well, with the large flat top of the cpu it's going to make a huge seal with the sink... I tried to twist a little, but I have a cap which was getting nudged, so I couldn't do too much o that... whew.. anyways, the cpu seems to be fine... no pins were manged or missing. Thank goodness... I am prepping my cards right now... pics soon.

 

[el rolio]

yea hte xp-90 is a beast. i got tons of knicks workin that that mofo.....

PICS!

 

[g33zy]

yeah its seems to be a trend with A64s, AS5 and heatsinks that we just HAVE to pull the proc off whenever we take the HS off.

The sad part was, I actually bent a few pins !OH NOES!

Straightened them and eventually got the back into the socket but my life was never the same..lol...the 3200+ is running like a champ in my brother's shuttle tho so its all good.

Anyways Rev, just had to come in to put my 2¢ in. I don't know what kinda camera you are using but :drool: i want one. The pics look amazing man.

Not to mention you got teh uber koolance case and in true revenant style turning it into a late night hot spot! One of the few people who can pull off 100 colours in the case and still make it pimpin!

oh and the cardboard mobo, hahaha priceless!@

looking good bro can't wait for the grand opening of the newest nightclub in Tiburon!

 

[revenant]

WHEW!! it's aaaallllliiiive!!! I tell you alive!.. hahahahahaaaa! Oh happy day... ok here are the pics for the last 5 hours... I will add text as I have time

best $5 I ever spent! Arctic Clean works wonders, man. good stuff!

I found that the little cooling "nibs" sticking up from the memory sink snapped off very easily with a pair of needle-nose pliars. whew. I was hoping that would not put up a fuss.. Just grab them from the top down, hold tight, and just a little jabbing motion and they would just snap off.

The first row and last row I snipped off with little wire snips, which was not nearly as clean looking.. as you can see from the pic, the ones I snapped off with the needle-nose are really clean looking, and there was less debris flying after the "snap". With the wire the metal would shoot off like a freakin bullet. Scary! I had to cover my eyes!

ok - here they be, side by side... I think that's about it...

these are real "matched cards" with sequencial serial numbers. not that it means much these days, but still kind of cool.

ok - the TDX went on very easily... very very easily. I was happy about that...

Oooo... shiny!

I decided to put gpu0 in "sans h2o block" and mount the block on it while it was in place... that worked well! I had just enough space to work with to get the AS5 on and the block sinched down, etc.. whew... what to do next... hmmmmmm...

ok - not enough space to mount the block while the card is in it's home, so I will have to mount the gpu block while it's out of the case, which is a little "in air" because of the limitations of moveable range from the tubing... anyways, it was a little tricky, but went well... the Tygon tubing is SOOO nice... very flexible.

FinaLLY!! I powered it on and it all works... whew... time for some serious wire management... the AC Ryan 100cm SATA cables have EL glow wires in them, but one of them is dead and the other emits a high pitched sound while on... SUCK! well, let that be a lesson to me for getting too frilly on that... I snipped the power wires from the EL stuff and tossed them.. oh well. The SATA cables themselves work well!

The cards run @ 38c idle and 45c load. lol. Could not ask for better than that...

The cpu runs @ 30c idle and about 36c load... from what small tests I have run so far... that's with the ambient @ 23c and the koolance on high... it really moves some air! still pretty quiet also...

 

[revenant]

Anyways Rev, just had to come in to put my 2¢ in. I don't know what kinda camera you are using but :drool: i want one. The pics look amazing man.

Oh hey... thanks! it's a little panasonic lumix DMC-LC33 (3.2megapixel). I got it like 2 or 3 years ago and have used the hell out of it. Panasonic uses a Lecia lense which I think makes the images appear to have 35mm quality... well, that's the theory... I like this camera a lot, but I don't like how it interprets low light images... makes them very "dirty" looking with digital distortion and such... but I guess that's just how these digitals deal with weak image intensity... I guess. My old Toshiba PDR-M70 did not do that tho... but it was a brick. lol

 

[el rolio]

rev.
ownage.
omg.

keep going.

 

[YmkFX]

Okay, we're impressed, you win. Now let's have some benchmarks!!

 

[revenant]

Oh wow... well, I discovered the other thing about this koolance tubing... it's UV reactive. lol

I got all the lighting in, but I might need to make adjustments... seems a little bright in the back on the left... but oh well. I am just happy it's all in... and I found a way to get the switch plates on (pci-slot cover switch plates for the UV ccfl's) with the wires almost completely hidden. whew!

I aimed my red LED spot beam right at the TDX... I am liking how that looks.

Anyways... wow, a lot of progress for this day. now I just need to re-wire my desk so I can get the audio working.. heh... my case being on the left side of the desk now instead of the right. These pics just don't seem to do it justice... it's looking really nice. I still need to clean up some wiring and make little adjustments here and there... but that's just how this goes I guess. heh...

Just ran 3Dmark05 again for kicks... 10209! I have my cards @ 410/1050 and my cpu @ 2500. Once I get the fan in place for the video card MOSFETs (which will likely sit on my top DVD drive, pointing inward, kinda like what Roli's got going on, but up higher) then I will start pushing my video cores to see what they'll do. ... and I am still planning on buying a 3700+ Sandie very soon... which will be fun OC higher than this winnie.

 

[revenant]

wow... running some more intensive video load tests... 44c on the cards! lol... that's 5c lower than the used to idle at. heh... oh yeah... they are chillin like a couple of video villians. heh... the ambient temps in the case are also good! damn this is one nice case... but I notice mine is lacking the second hole into the mobo area from the psu/hard drive area.. the one where Roli's running his mobo power lead and one water tube... anyways, I am making due without for now. I might enlage the hole on the angled part of the aluminum bottom tray to the left of the mobo on the bottom... I have it jammed pack with wires. lol

I think I could enlarge that one when I take things apart again... maybe on the weekend... time for some burn in tests now.

 

[R!P13y]

Nice work, what fluid is that??? It is BLUE?? I have UV blue tubes with Green AF in it, I like the look of mine but wouldnt mind knowing

 

[revenant]

Yeah - Roli found this stuff.. pentosin! VW Audi anti freeze. It's a 15% 85% mixture with distilled water.. You can get blue coolant pre-mixed like this also
http://www.directron.com/zmg100.html

I am planning on adding some UV reactive dye also... (also blue) at some point...

 

[revenant]

Roli - I really like how your water tube runs came out.... very slick and well placed in your case! also awesome work hiding those wires. w00t. I am so tired now... whew... going to let my machine run UT2004 demo loops all night to let the AS5 set.

 

[Hurin]

Wow. . . just wow. . .

I didn't think anything could make me want to try water cooling. But, well, this did.

Just amazing.

I'll be interested in seeing how much higher your OC gets.

Ironically, I just found out that the problem with my girlfriend's computer (that I just built her from my old parts) is heat-related.

 

[el rolio]

yeeeaaa man, let that bad boy set. heh. wow you are getting great temps. uhm, i was thinkin about maybe a smaller fan attached to the edge of the card possibly running on a resistor? like i think a good 40 or 50 depending on whats fitting would cool those mosfets fine and would be great to have it run thru the fins on the end of the ramsinks ya kno..... at the very least shoudl be fun we might need to rig up similar things.

i cut a lotta holes in ma case rev. and i gotta tell ya, enlargening the one i the anlged part of hte plate is gonna be massive help, along with removing a big part of the separator plate back behind the drive cages... basically just out of sight and to the left of the pic you are lookin at

that 3dmark05 quick early bench is ridiculous....like im still flirting with 12000 in OH-THREE! over here. ive been told thats pretty decent for a vanilla 6800 tho so i wont complain too much heheh, oh and dont toss that 3500 toooo far when the time comes for the sandy

but yea, take some time, after the initial build and during the burn ins, thats where a lot of the lil extras got figured out. its crazy how detail oriented and cautious you may be during hte BIG stage whre you are installing everything, making loop runs etc.... and then when so many hours of work are done, its liek the same attention begins to be put on this fan wire or that light tube or the other drive cable. so take ya time jsut keep posting pics homie.

edit+++ you know what i forgot to mention? what really pwns is the color setups. led fan have matching heashrink etc, but where there was blue you used yellow shrink. so when it came to needing clamps for tubes runnin blue water: ellow zip ties? great man

 

[revenant]

Roli - I thought of a solution to my wiring issues today in the show... like that Jane's Addiction song.. "standing in the shower thinkin" .. heh... anyways, if I make a cut here

that will give me the best "behind the scenes" flexibility for getting that wiring under control... I think I can manage that with the snips I have also... so no need to grind or anything which would shoot metal fragments around. whew...