It Begins - Stupid GPU AIO Modification

[alxlwson]

Use dIstilled water and a few drops of iodine. Don't use antifreeze, water wetter or any of that stuff. Contact area is already 100% if there is no air trapped in the block/loop.

Lies. Love seeing people talk about things they have no idea about. Surface tension, entrained air, etc...

Please, I beg you -Walk into an industrial facility and tell the maintenance crew that they don't need surfactants and friction modifiers for their hydraulic systems.

 

[pendragon1]

How are you holding that Corsair unit in place?

its screwed on. you can see the holes at the corners of the block/pump.

 

[Deleted member 278999]

nice mod! ive been thinking about getting a 140mm rad to swap on to mine and you just proved that its worthwhile!

Do it.

If you want specific tips I can help you with them / walk you through it.

So long as you can match up the Asetek AIO generation you should be good. It's the coldplate that has to match up. You could probably do this with something larger like a 240 or 280. Problem is finding an older unit. They just happen to still make the H90 / X41. I think Corsair sells some old refurbished H100's. You really have to take them apart to see if they match up. And one stripped screw your up the creek. I had to drill out one of the screws on the Hybrid AIO. Whatever you use, I'd get something that lets you exhaust OUT of the case.

How are you holding that Corsair unit in place?

There's a bracket that's attached to the EVGA Hybrid AIO screwed onto the outer ring of screws on the underside of the pump / heatsink. The inner ring of screws holds on the cold plate. The outer ring on the underside of the pump / heatsink holds together the pump. The Hybrid AIO uses the outer ring of screws to mount the bracket. This bracket then sits on the midplate and is held onto the card from the back by the 4 screws surrounding the GPU die. These screws have a fatter head than normal to disperse the weight.

That's how I'm holding it in place in this instance. There are other methods like that used by the NZXT G10.

The best solution for most people is to use a G10 with an AIO that has a flat cold plate. Most every current AIO on the market is convex. Some aren't.

I used the Hybrid coldplate as I wanted to keep my midplate and use what I had on hand. I think together it is the best cooling solution with what I had available to me.

Use dIstilled water and a few drops of iodine. Don't use antifreeze, water wetter or any of that stuff. Contact area is already 100% if there is no air trapped in the block/loop.

Never heard of using Iodine. I'm not sure what you mean about contact area...

The primary reasons for additives in a loop are to prevent growth, corrosion with mixed metals and lubrication. To a degree the water can be made more slippery. There are lots of papers on it and needs vary wildly depending on the application.

For this application you primarily want to prevent growth so that you don't need to change fluid frequently. You also need to prevent corrosion and you may need to lubricate the pump. You also probably want to prevent foaming all while not corroding the cooling system.

I don't know how Iodine plays into that. That's more in the area of nuclear cooling and preventing ions from blah blah blah beyond my expertise.

Lies. Love seeing people talk about things they have no idea about. Surface tension, for one.

Yeah. There is so much that goes into 'coolant' that people don't understand. And a lot of gimmicks too. Deionized water / non conductive coolant for instance eventually picks up trace metals and becomes conductive. It's complicated.

 

[Vader1975]

What did it get your temps down to?



"With all of that said and done, cooling performance has improved a lot. Overclocked to 1,572 Mhz, Idle temperatures are down to 33°C from 40, MSI Afterburner based Kombuster went down to 53°C from 70, and load temperatures in The Division went down to 50°C from 70-80."

Now that is quite an improvement. That looks like it will work out as a permanent solution to this particular setup.

 

[pendragon1]

Do it.

If you want specific tips I can help you with them / walk you through it.

So long as you can match up the Asetek AIO generation you should be good. It's the coldplate that has to match up. You could probably do this with something larger like a 240 or 280. Problem is finding an older unit. They just happen to still make the H90 / X41. I think Corsair sells some old refurbished H100's. You really have to take them apart to see if they match up. And one stripped screw your up the creek. I had to drill out one of the screws on the Hybrid AIO. Whatever you use, I'd get something that lets you exhaust OUT of the case.

well I already have a h60 on my 280x(zip-tie red mod!!) I just want to swap the rad to something bigger. so all i'd have to do is swap the rad and refill. not sure about the concave/convex issue with the h60 but it seems to work fine and the one time I had it off the tim looked nice and even. I have it mounted sucking in cold air from the side panel and then sucking straight out the back via a 120mm fan I wedged between the psu and gpu. I just want to improve it a bit and get it quieter. thnx for the offer though!

edit: was thinking about a phobya 140mm as its only $10 more that a cheapy ebay one. I think the bleed port could be used as a fill port?!
https://modmymods.com/phobya-g-changer-140-v2-full-copper.html

 

[Deleted member 278999]

well I already have a h60 on my 280x(zip-tie red mod!!) I just want to swap the rad to something bigger. so all i'd have to do is swap the rad and refill. not sure about the concave/convex issue with the h60 but it seems to work fine and the one time I had it off the tim looked nice and even. I have it mounted sucking in cold air from the side panel and then sucking straight out the back via a 120mm fan I wedged between the psu and gpu. I just want to improve it a bit and get it quieter. thnx for the offer though!

edit: was thinking about a phobya 140mm as its only $10 more that a cheapy ebay one. I think the bleed port could be used as a fill port?!
https://modmymods.com/phobya-g-changer-140-v2-full-copper.html

The TIM may look even but that doesn't mean that it's flat. I believe that you're right though as the H60 is a CoolIT variant and from what I know are flat. Every CoolIT AIO that I've personally seen is flat. To be sure you can take a known flat surface like that of a caliper, square, straight edge or such and check if it's convex or concave. FYI though, the CoolIT AIO's don't use the same mounting mechanism as the Asetek stuff and won't work with things like the NZXT G10.

Back to modding your AIO. Retubing an AIO is a bitch. I mean a real pain in the ass if you want to slip fit hoses. At $40 + shipping you're getting into the area where buying a 140 AIO might be more beneficial - check out this for instance. It's a refurbished H90 for CHEAP. For $10, likely less than the cost of tubing and brass fittings (they're expensive as fuck) you'll get exactly what you want. Heck I may order one myself. There's also this refurbished H110 directly from Corsair for $90 which you can allegedly knock an additional 20% off during their Cyber Monday sale through the 30th (today) with the Promotional Code CYBERMONDAY2016 (double checked and it's not working for some reason - you can probably call them out on it and get the discount if you really want). In fact it's actually supposed to be 30% because it's 20% off sitewide and an additional 10% off refurbished items. So it should be $63+ tax and shipping for a 280 AIO - not bad

 

[JosiahBradley]

Nice project. I'm glad there are still people out there willing to do hard hacks just because.

 

[pendragon1]

Retubing an AIO is a bitch. I mean a real pain in the ass if you want to slip fit hoses.

already did that and it wasn't to bad, hot water and brute strength did it. I was given a "dead" h60, the fluid wasn't moving but the pump was going. I started out just ripping into it to see if I could salvage the rad and found that one of the barbs was clogged. I cleaned that out, re-tubed it and slapped it on my 280x, works fine. my plan was to just rip off the old rad, install the new and use a T to add a fill tube. last time I filled the rad and the block separately and gingerly pieced them together.
that h110 is not too bad, i just got a h110i gt for my cpu and am pretty damn happy with it. there's also a 240mm CM eisberg(sp?) on my local kijiji for $50 that ive been eyeing... here's a pic that kinda shows what I got going on(shitty cell phone pic).

edit: jeez, he doesn't look that dusty irl...

 

[Deleted member 278999]

What did it get your temps down to?

And we're back with Round 2!

Changed cases, swapped some fans around, moved the existing 280 CPU AIO to the front, and placed 140 Intake Fans on the bottom to feed the new 140 GPU AIO.

The new AIO for the GPU is a modified Corsair H90 which is an Asetek based unit. The hoses are a bit short. Supposedly the NZXT X40 / X41 is the same Asetek unit with longer hoses, but in this case shorter hoses worked out better. The hoses make a short level 180° bend to the radiator which sits just below the video card. The short length of the hoses and soft level bend should keep the coolant flow rate up.

This particular Asetek version of the AIO is important to utilize as it's the same one as far as I can tell used by the EVGA Hybrid and lets you use its mounting mechanism and cold plate. Later generations of Asetek AIO's have different pump and jet internals. Utilizing the cold plate from the EVGA Hybrid is important as it has a protrusion with a flat face that allows for direct mounting to the bare GPU die without extra layers of shims and thermal paste which would decrease cooling performance. Most AIO cooling units are convex meant for CPU heat spreaders and thus won't make perfect contact with a bare die like that on a GPU leading to poor cooling performance. So the Hybrid cold plate is ideal.

Swapping the cold plate isn't easy. You need to turn the block upside down so that coolant doesn't get out and the screws are made of butter. Even firm pressure with a correct sized screw driver gets the job done and with the parts swapped and bracket mounted I routed everything in. I left the shroud off of the GPU as I have more than enough airflow to keep things in check. In fact, if anything the shroud was probably hampering cooling.

By switching over to the H90 we're moving from a 120 radiator to a 140! This means more surface area, more coolant capacity and more air flow with less noise due to bigger better fans.

With all of that said and done, cooling performance has improved a lot. Overclocked to 1,572 Mhz, Idle temperatures are down to 33°C from 40, MSI Afterburner based Kombuster went down to 53°C from 70, and load temperatures in The Division went down to 50°C from 70-80.


Finished Product Pictures:

Nice project. I'm glad there are still people out there willing to do hard hacks just because.

Thanks JosiahBradley! It took longer than expected but it was totally worth it in the end.

Factory water cooled cards should come with 140's by default. A 120mm radiator just isn't enough in my opinion.

 

[Schtask]

Awesome work Kwaz! Love the ingenuity.

 

[Deleted member 278999]

already did that and it wasn't to bad, hot water and brute strength did it. I was given a "dead" h60, the fluid wasn't moving but the pump was going. I started out just ripping into it to see if I could salvage the rad and found that one of the barbs was clogged. I cleaned that out, re-tubed it and slapped it on my 280x, works fine. my plan was to just rip off the old rad, install the new and use a T to add a fill tube. last time I filled the rad and the block separately and gingerly pieced them together.
that h110 is not too bad, i just got a h110i gt for my cpu and am pretty damn happy with it. there's also a 240mm CM eisberg(sp?) on my local kijiji for $50 that ive been eyeing... here's a pic that kinda shows what I got going on(shitty cell phone pic).
View attachment 11504
edit: jeez, he doesn't look that dusty irl...

Yeah, I have an H110i GT and it's great. Love the thing and I haven't had a single issue.

The 280 is cool and all buy if they ship to Canadia for free I'd be all over that H90 on eBay for... Hmm, seems like the price went up. That H90 on eBay was $48 US which was a smoking deal. Now, not so much

As f wrestling on tubes, that's exactly what l was talking about. For the same price as the radiator it would have been worth it

I didn't know that the 280X got that hot!

 

[pendragon1]

I didn't know that the 280X got that hot!

well typically they don't get that hot but I had a failing fan and had the h60 so I put it to use. it was getting into the 70s and after the h60 is in the low 50s but the h60 fans get loud. so I want to go a bit bigger with quieter fans. I'm getting old and have started to appreciate silent systems.

 

[Deleted member 278999]

well typically they don't get that hot but I had a failing fan and had the h60 so I put it to use. it was getting into the 70s and after the h60 is in the low 50s but the h60 fans get loud. so I want to go a bit bigger with quieter fans. I'm getting old and have started to appreciate silent systems.

Yes indeed. I have extremely sensitive ears. Crazy sensitive. I first got a Corsair 700D High Airflow. It was loud as I didn't set my fan profiles correctly and was trying to compensate for the small 120 GPU radiator. I then switched the windowed panel on the 750D to a solid panel which still didn't help.

When I was building out this system I picked up a 600Q with solid sound insulated panels which at the time didn't work well because the airflow is funky. You have to have your ins and outs just right to keep temperatures down and I still have some improvements to do like adding two 60mm fans to one of vents.

But man oh man. I have missed a silent case. I have pretty much all of my fans on intake except for the PSU and GPU Radiator. Some additional tuning should bring the noise down more. It just takes takes work and rinwu, but man is it worth it in the long run.

One thing I'd like to do next is to get Speed Fan working and ditch the NZXT Grid+ V2. The unit could use some improvements and I'd like to better control acceleration and deceleration of the fans. I forget if Speed Fan has that option so I'm going to have to do some digging. The real thing that I need to do however is get some powered Fan Splitters - probably from Swiftech. The iPPC fans pull too much amperage to double up on motherboard fan headers, and while the Grid+ V2 offers hysteresis, it doesn't offer the adjustment of change of RPM over time to smooth out the change in tone. Hysteresis helps, but only adjusts to temperature over time.

 

[Deleted member 278999]

Well,

Had a pump ~failure last week. The H90 AIO started grinding. After taking it apart it looks as though some water evaporated from the pump.

I tried rotating the radiator to get the air bubble trapped at the top, but no matter which way I rotated it air wound up trapped in the pump again.

I picked up a new H90 AIO and did the same mod just in case some damage was done to the pump or impeller. As it turns out I believe that I found some, it appeared as though some plastic from the impeller got stuck in the microfins of the cold plate. It was enough to block the pump though.

Upon further examination it looks as though I may have inadvertently not tightened down the screws that hold the clam shells of the pump together enough (the plastic parts, not the cold plate). I believe this caused some vapor to release over time. Comparing the level of coolant in the new H90 to the old H90, the old one that was used in this project the first go'round was missing a few tablespoons of water.

It might not seem like much missing coolant, but due to the relatively low volume of the AIO to begin with, it is enough to cause a void which the AIO is incapable of handling.

Overall I've been fairly happy with this solution. I have thought about converting the GPU's AIO to an H110i of the same Asetek generation, but have not yet decided on make it happen. The price of 980 Ti waterblocks has come down a lot, and I think that I can get some decent pieces for ~$200 or so.

I believe that a full custom water setup would eliminate a lot of the issues I'm having as I'm asking a lot from these AIO's. But it's been a fun experiment with small maintenance projects here and there to tend to.

Initially modifying the AIO to work with a GPU without something like the NZXT G10 was quite the undertaking. Now having done it, this time around swapping cold plates was pretty quick and easy. The biggest issue is finding a good P00 bit that won't strip and getting enough weight on the pump block as the screws are torqued in pretty good.

Pics:

Right: new unmodified AIO, Left: old AIO (note the water level). I taped these to the counter for a second pair of hands. Hanging the AIO is most effective as it gets the radiator and tubing out of the way and allows you to put pressure on the cold plate today remove screws.

New modified AIO

The new AIO works great! No more grinding!

 

[Reality]

I'm just jealous of your 1572 clock. Even at 1.274v my 980ti barely manages 1500 (MSI Gaming 6G) with a full cover block

 

[Deleted member 278999]

I'm just jealous of your 1572 clock. Even at 1.274v my 980ti barely manages 1500 (MSI Gaming 6G) with a full cover block

That's still a pretty darn good overclock!

How are your temperatures?

 

[Reality]

That's still a pretty darn good overclock!

How are your temperatures?

temps are good, don't think it ever goes above 43 in the summer months here in Illinois, one bonus i guess of watercooling is you don't generally have to deal with throttling on these newer graphics cards

1572 though, damn dude lol.

 

[Deleted member 278999]

temps are good, don't think it ever goes above 43 in the summer months here in Illinois, one bonus i guess of watercooling is you don't generally have to deal with throttling on these newer graphics cards

1572 though, damn dude lol.

Luck of the draw!


It certainly rules out a 1080 and 1080 Ti. Which is fine, I have high hopes for Volta.

I'm curious, which waterblock are you using for your 980 Ti? A lot of used blocks have been popping up and I'm tempted to build a mid tier custom loop.

 

[Reality]

Luck of the draw!


It certainly rules out a 1080 and 1080 Ti. Which is fine, I have high hopes for Volta.

I'm curious, which waterblock are you using for your 980 Ti? A lot of used blocks have been popping up and I'm tempted to build a mid tier custom loop.

matching EK block for this particular card

 

[Deleted member 278999]

matching EK block for this particular card

Awesome!

How many radiators do you run at what size?

I was thinking that a single 280 likely won't be enough. I'll probably need two.

 

[Deleted member 278999]

I'm just jealous of your 1572 clock. Even at 1.274v my 980ti barely manages 1500 (MSI Gaming 6G) with a full cover block

Snehehe,

Did a really thin paste and got a bit more stable

Temps are up today as it's around 38 C / 100F Ambient

 

[deaedius]

That's freakin awesome on a 980ti! Well done! [H]

 

[Reality]

Awesome!

How many radiators do you run at what size?

I was thinking that a single 280 likely won't be enough. I'll probably need two.

1 60mm thick 240, and 1 30mm thick 360. cpu block, Motherboard block and the gpu block

 

[braindamage]

For the EVGA hybrid cooler, is there any way to replace the screws for the coldplate with ones that don't strip as easily?

 

[alxlwson]

For the EVGA hybrid cooler, is there any way to replace the screws for the coldplate with ones that don't strip as easily?

Take it to a Fastenal.