Massive Overkill X-QPack take 2

MassiveOverkill

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 8, 2005
Messages
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The predecessor: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=931302

Currently this system is running a Venice 3200 @ 2.6Ghz Est idle 34C, load 44C (onboard temp sensor of this Jetway ATI480 Pro board sucks)
Radeon 850XT 600/600 50C load, 38C idle
2x1024 OCZ Gold
1 Maxtor Maxline III 250 gigger SATA 16 meg cache
1 Seagate 7200.8 200 gigger SATA 8 meg cache
LG DVD burner
X-Clio (Antec) 520 watt PS
Evercool WC-202 water cooling system, modified

And now a little preview of the succesor:

The players (XFX 7800GT, Swiftech Storm, MCW55, MCP350, Micro-Res, Black Ice Extreme Rad, and Vantec Iceburg RAMsinks):

Layout.jpg


Side shot. I'll have to reverse the SATA drives so the cables feed from the front. It's a tight fit, but I can make it work I'll obviously have to cut the side panel for air to exit:

FanView.jpg


Back shot. I'll leave half of the 120mm open behind the radiator for fresh air intake and block off the part between the rad and 120mm side-mounted fan. Of course, everything will be boxed off so there will be no air leaks between the rad and fan:

BackView.jpg


Front shot:

FrontView.jpg


Front skew:

SkewView.jpg


Top shot. You like how those barbs fit perfectly between the power supply? And yes, this clears a shorty optical drive:

TopView.jpg


Power supply side shot, notice how nicely the bottom barb lines up with the passthrough in the chasis.

PSView.jpg


I'm mainly waiting on my pre-order Opteron 146 and the T-Force 6100-430 boards to come to market (that can actually overclock). I'm going to go with a Sparkle/Fortron FSP550 variant for the power supply.

You don't know the withdrawal symptoms I'm having right now from the parts just sitting on the bench.

I would like to thank Hank Baron at PerformancePC's for letting me come down to his shop to test fit the rad and other parts.
 
You're not going to see very good airflow through that rad without creating a duct from the fan to it and even then it's going to massively suffer due to being so close to the PSU.

Personally if it were mine I'd try to find a better location for the rad/fan combo like outside the case or somewhere it will have un-obstructed airflow within the case.

That's just my 2 cents worth though.
 
Back shot. I'll leave half of the 120mm open behind the radiator for fresh air intake and block off the part between the rad and 120mm side-mounted fan. Of course, everything will be boxed off so there will be no air leaks between the rad and fan:

I've already done some airflow tests, and it has sufficient clearance. With the fan stuck directly against the rad (no shroud yet mind you), I put a flat barrier against the rad, slowly pulling the barrier away from it, I pretty much had full airflow as long as the barrier was .75" or farther away from the rad. In the case mounted, I have about .9" clearance.

Mounting the rad externally is not an option. It takes away from the portability of the case, as well as the functionality as if I want to remove the motherboard tray, or even open the cover, an externally mounted radiator would have to be unbolted and moved out of the way.

The only dilemma I have now, is whether to have the fan pulling air from inside the case through the rad or pushing fresh air from outside in. I guess I'll experiment once it's all together.
 
I run the fans on my 2x80mm rads so that they suck fresh air into my system through the rads and while mt case temps are sort of high I get far better CPU temps than I did with my old setup which had a 120mm fan on a heatercore type rad blowing warm case air out through the rad.
 
I may cut the top window so that the rad is sucking fresh air from the top. I was going to have it suck fresh air from the back as well, but I'm afraid it may get hot air from my power supply. I'd like to keep the fan sucking through the rad as opposed to pushing through it.
 
hey overkill time for round two? I'm here for help. PM me if you need anything.
 
Thanks guys. Michigan..........is your rig together yet or still pending? What h20 components are you going with? BTW I'll join the SFF club when I'm done with this project. I still haven't changed my sig yet, cause I'm hoping this new PC will last me at least 8 months or so and I can settle on a sig that will stick for awhile.........unlike the 3-4 month upgrade cycles I've been doing recently.
 
my case has gone through some changes

switched over to yate loon 120mm fans for more quiet system . also changed radiator to black ice pro. now if i can only silence this mcp600 pump a bit more


good luck with your project

:)
 
I am about half-way in my rig. I havn't really had time to do much on it. Oh and you better join the club.
 
MassiveOverkill said:
I would like to thank Hank Baron at PerformancePC's for letting me come down to his shop to test fit the rad and other parts.

Nice. I live in Orlando and i was thinking of driving down to PerformancePC's to buy my next WC kit...
 
Updated pics. I decided to mount the 120x38 fan externally. This gave me more room for my radiator to breath as well as preventing the rad from interfereing with the Storm's hose barbs. I really wanted to avoid having anything external, but I had to compromise. You can see the difference:

Before:
BackView.jpg
After:
MoreSpace.jpg


Before:
TopView.jpg
After:
NewTopShot.jpg


Here's the mounting bracket I made for the rad:
RadiatorBracket.jpg

RadiatorBracket2.jpg


Where I cut the HD support bracket to mount the rad. It was important to not completely remove this bracket as I've seen others do as it to make clearance for their air-cooled heat sinks. It weakens the structure considerably to do so.

HDSupportBrace.jpg

HDSupportBracecutout.jpg


I also cut the center support beam to make extra room for water tubes and then reinforced with the 3-1/2" aluminum blank using pop rivets:

CenterSupportBracket.jpg


Cut of the case cover for the 120x38mm fan:

120mmholecutout.jpg


Side window cut accordingly:

SideLexanCut.jpg


Everything mounted:

External120mm.jpg


Shot of my ducting, this is temporary for now until I can find something more aesthetic, but it works:

Ducting.jpg


To make the hard drives fit, I had to cut the slide-out HD cage and mount them 180 degrees from norm. I cut the front chasis to make room for the SATA cables and power molex's (I may have to cut more, but we'll see).

HDaccesshole.jpg


Swiftech Micro Res installed and lines connected to rad and MCP-350 pump. I used 1/2" thinwall tubing with CoolSleeves.............have your cake and eat it too. The flow of 1/2" tubing but with the non-kinking properties of thick-walled tubing.......a must for this project. I'm still using 3/8" tubing in and out of the pump, but once I get a modded top for the pump, I'll go to 1/2" tubing througout.

MicroRes.jpg

MCP350.jpg


Bought the Yellow X-Qpack on Xoxide's X-hour for like 60 bucks. $3 can of spray paint flat black:

OnceWasYellow.jpg


Water block mounted, damn thermal tape on these Vantec RAMsinks suck......going to get some real thermal tape (thermal epoxy is out of the question for warranty purposes)

MCW55mounted.jpg


That's it for now.
 
mmm awesome!

Too bad you had to mount the fan outside of the case.. that just rewens it for me. Is there any room to put it inside?
 
PC-HAngover said:
mmm awesome!

Too bad you had to mount the fan outside of the case.. that just rewens it for me. Is there any room to put it inside?

The fan could be mounted on the inside of the case, directly against the radiator between the rad and power supply, but without being shrouded, there would be a dead spot in the middle, hurting cooling capacity, and the fan would be pretty close to the power supply, and while it would still cool, I don't know if I want to compromise it that much.

The other problem with the fan being mounted there is that it would probably cause interference with my CPU block hose barbs. I want to try and keep the angle at which the water feed and return lines on the Storm block as close to straight as possible.
 
In my case I have the radiator being external on the back with a shroud....this makes it so the case top can still come off very easily. I don't have a picture at the moment but if you wish to see how I did it (since it is the same thing you are doing) I would be more then happy to take a few.
 
I think I know how you did it..........your coolant lines go through the blank space on the motherboard tray right? Yep, let's see some pictures.
 
Well, my buddy wants his gaming rig.......just paid me another 500 towards it, so I went ahead and ordered the Biostar board from ZZF.

IF a better board comes out, I'll buy it and use this board for a customer build.
 
Well if you used a low profile 120mm fan, you could still shroud it.

If I do watercool mine, it will all be internal. I go to way to many lans to compromise my rig because of an external radiator.
 
Well, the radiator is still internal, it's just the fan that's external. What I'm going to do is when it's all done, is do a load test with the fan external, and then compare it to my load temps with the fan internal. If the temperature difference isn't that much, I may just leave the fan internal.
 
PC-HAngover said:
Well if you used a low profile 120mm fan, you could still shroud it.

If I do watercool mine, it will all be internal. I go to way to many lans to compromise my rig because of an external radiator.

I, would like to do the same thing. I wouldn't want external on a SFF. Although, Massive has the sweetest qpack i've seen. HAngover if you do decide to internally WC, would you possibly keep me informed on how that goes.
 
TheBlueChanell said:
I, would like to do the same thing. I wouldn't want external on a SFF. Although, Massive has the sweetest qpack i've seen. HAngover if you do decide to internally WC, would you possibly keep me informed on how that goes.

sure will.. though I am kinda broke right now ;)
 
Motherboard came in today. I'll bench test tonight with the mobo out of case while I do my 12-hour leak test. Tommorrow, I'll drain the distilled water and throw in the MCT-5.

Here's the bare loop:

12HourLeakTest.jpg
 
That's sharp.

I'm kicking around an idea of water cooling with one of those large passive radiators.
13 1/2 inches long by 9 inches wide, by 2 inches thick

mounted to the top of the X-QPACK case
(LxWxH), 13.8" x 11.2" x 9"

Main issue would be an inability to remove cover, and routing hoses into case.
Most folks mount them to the backside of a full tower case.
 
Well she's done........check my new sig for specs.

I wasn't too keen about the external 120mm fan sticking out the side, so I played around with a few options.

Dual 90's offset push/pull:

Dual90s.jpg


That in conjuction with my 120x38 out back:

120external.jpg


This setup didn't cool too well and was way too loud.

I finally found a way to make a 120x25 fit inside the case between the rad and housing. I had to grind down the corners of the fan to make it fit. I only gained maybe 1C load from the shrouded 120x38mm fan, which was well worth the trade-off of not having an externally mounted fan.

120x25internal.jpg


Final build shots:

HDshot.jpg


RadTubes.jpg


RubingSkewShot.jpg


FrontShot.jpg


7800GTsideshot.jpg


NightSideShot.jpg


As far as temps go, I'm really happy with my GPU temps. My CPU temps are pissing me off though. I removed my IHS to make sure that wasn't the culprit, which it wasn't (bye bye warranty :( ). Only thing I can think of is that my Storm block is somehow defective. My loop is all 1/2" except going from the pump output to the Storm block, whch is 3/8" tubing. Water was churning up pretty good in the reservoir, so I don't think flow is a problem (you'd think I'd see temp problems on my GPU). I'm using AS Ceramique on the water block and Shin-Etsu on the die-IHS.

Oh, MCT-5 non-conductive fluid is a damn lifesaver. I'll never water cool with anything else. I had to use thinwall tubing for flexibility......only thing is it's hard to keep the tubing secured to the barbs. I may go 7/16" next time, but next time is going to be a whole new rig.......my next upgrade, because after all the headaches of putting this together, I'm really not looking forward to taking her apart.

Aquamark screenie:

Aquamark.jpg


3DMark05 7885

CPUZ
 
what stepping's your opty? if its not cabge, i'd think you'd be able to push it further on water. unless currently its the temps that're holding u back. nice rig though :)
 
Thanks, it's a CABYE 0540. Although the temps aren't where I'd like them to be, I'm thinking it may be the limits of the mobo. I can boot at 300FSB, but I can't get it Prime stable. I know others have gotten past 300, but who knows.
 
lower multiplier and run higher dividers on ur memory to check if its the mobo or cpu. or ram, if ur not changing the dividers when u run the fsb higher.
 
Keeping the memory at 200 or below each time using the memory divider. I've tried 350x8 using memory known good for 235 Mhz in different configurations on this same setup, no good.
 
Better shot of why I can't mount the 120mm fan behind the radiator.........tubes from the Storm are in the way:

TopShotStorm.jpg


Added some 40mm fans to cool the RAMsinks:


1CoolPC.jpg
 
Why not create a shroud for that gap between PSU and rad so the air gets forced through and straight out the back? Is it sucking through the rad or blowing onto the rad? Have you tried both ways? What are the CPU temps?
 
I did ;) I actually was able to fit another 120mm out back, but at an angle to clear the water tubes, and it's shrouded, so it sucks the hot air out the back.........

exhaustfanangled.jpg


BackExhaustFan.jpg



Part of the reason why my CPU temps sucked is because all the jets were clogged with debris on my Storm waterblock. My temps didn't change, but then again, my ambient temps are 10-15F hotter now (cold front is gone :( ) I'm really thinking of switching to an Apogee block because of this. Plus the increased flow of the Apogee is an added benefit. If you have even the slightest amount of debris from manufacturing processes, it will clog your jets in a Storm block. I had flushed my entire system before final filling it.

I've gone so far as to remove the IHS and re-apply Shin-Etsu to the core. I've also removed the Swiftech supplied spacers as the block wasn't making good enough contact with the IHS. The AS Ceramique is still curing, so we'll see if temps drop in a few days.
 
Good man :)

I've seen reports of the apogee with some real bad build quality. Looks shocking!

Have you cleaned the storm up then?
 
Pulling her apart as we speak. I can see the problem documented on Swiftech's website about the base of the Storm being too thick.........I can't get decent contact with my IHS. Even with the Apogee's quality control problem, you can clean up the block yourself. With the Storm, you better flush, flush, and flush again to make sure your system is squeaky clean, or install a filter right before the Storm to make sure no debris gets to it.
 
take some shots of it in the dark plz :)

do the coils around the tubings light up, or r they UV reactive or what?
 
The cool sleeves are UV reactive, which makes up for the MCT-5 not being UV reactive and looking like darkened puke. My camera takes horrible night shots without the flash, but here ya go:

You can see in this shot, I've mounted a stock AMD 70mm fan to the Storm hold-down plate to cool my RAM.

StormnNight.jpg


RightSideNight.jpg


TopShotNight.jpg


I did one last and final reconfiguration of the fans. With the angled 120mm (blue LED) behind the radiator blowing out the back, there really was no airflow inside the case and my HD was getting pretty toasty.

I blocked off the back hole and re-angled the 120mm (blue LED) to blow inside the case and I shrouded it to the radiator with tape. Case temps went down dramitically, and now my FSP power supply fan no longer screams like a banshee. An added benefit is that now 100% of my air is filtered, hopefully reducing the dust bunnies.
 
Massive, I am floored man :eek: . That setup is a just unbelievable. I am in awe. Great job. :cool: .
 
Thanks alot CC. I was on vacation this week and I probably spent 40 hours getting this thing worked out. I must have remounted my Storm waterblock 6 or 7 times (a major PITA with the cramped quarters......everything has to come apart) to make sure everything was making good contact. I'm really leaning towards getting an Apogee waterblock, but I'm going to give the thermal paste the weekend to cure to see if things change. Right now my CPU temps are 41C idle / 52C load under prime GPU temps are much better being 39C idle / 45C load.

I'll probably get one of these: http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=145&products_id=1503 to help exhaust air out the front.
 
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