Project: Dark Forces

[Lazaredz]

While I have done some minor moding in the past (mostly blowholes) I've decided to make a run with this case.

The case is a P180B w/window. I am not only going to watercool this thing and run with a red lighting motif, but I've decided to go with a Dark Side Star Wars theme.

In order to get the pump in the right place and have better airflow I decided to remove the top HD cage fan grill and the back fan grill. Both were cut using a dremel and smothing out the edges a bit with sandpaper.

Note that the front cut LOOKS to be offcenter due to the screw holes in the case. However those holes are not used. The front fan is screwed onto a plastic plate that slides into place and does center on the fan hole.

I had to cut out the roof of the 3.5 floppy bay as I needed more clearance for my pump and just removing the lowest 5.25 bay wasn't going to be enough. I decided to leave the sides on the 3.5 bay as they provide good cover for wires and such.

Got the case back from the painters. It went pretty well. I used an interior auto paint, so it was flat and a vinyl base (I think). The guy did a pretty good job in my opinion. I'll be adding in the PSU, HD, and a couple of fans today.

More pics in a bit.

You can see here how the interior case paint matches up to the exterior finish. Looks good to me, just less shine (and thus less fingerprints and dust show up).

PSU, HD cage, & fan in place (Yate Loon D12SL-12 will be used T/O)

As you can see I allready have a bit of touch up to do here and there. Not a big deal but basicly anywhere where its going to scrape will need a fine touch brush to it.

The idea here is to mount a low speed fan to vent the case and also provide mounts for the radiator. The rad is going to be a DD Black Ice 240GTS with 2 of the Yate Loons mounted to the BACK to PULL air through it. I do wish the screws were a bit longer but 50mm is the longest I could find at Lowes in this size. I may fiddle with this more in the future.

This is some simple floor padding bought at Lowes. I put some cheap flat black over it to match. I plan on using this plus some velcrow to mount the pump in the case.

Velcrow in place.

Padding on top.

Pump in place also.

Hopefully this will dampen the vibrational effects of the pump on the case and reduce overall noise.

More to come.

 

[Lazaredz]

Cooling the MCP (SB) on the 680i is a bit of a bitch with a 8800GTX. Bluntly it was REALLY poor planning on Nvidia's part. I had been thinking about this for weeks now as the MCP does need cooling but I didn't want to put a little chipset screamer down there.

SO, I did a little cutting work on a DD Maze 4 chipset block and came up with:

The straight screwslot on the "north" end had to go as A) it was to thick and would not fit under the 8800 and B) if I used it to line up with the MB hole, the barbs would have been in a less accessiable position.

Its no where NEAR as tight as it would be with a real setup, but it only twists a little. Seems to be making good contact and that is what is important.

I'm giving this a quick try before I commit. I want to cool the MCP (SB) WITHOUT a louad 40mm screamer chipset cooler on it. I bought a MAZE 4 chipset block from DD just before they put out a 680i chipset (NB) cooler, so I had an extra. After doing alot of measuring and thinking I decided to cut off the straight screwslot as it was in the way (too high and ran into the 8800GTX card) AND was not in the right position to give me good access to the barbs.

The zip ties are for now. It gives me good enough contact. The block moves if pushed but holds in place if left alone. IF this works out allright I'll cut the tied and use thermal ADHESIVE to hold the block on.

The rest of my stuff showed today and I cannot stress enough how much more flexable and easy to work with the masterkleer tubing is as opposed to the home depot stuff. Night and day people. WELL worth the money.

The 7/16th tubing work VERY well on the 1/2 barbs IF you boil the tubing so its more maluable. Once again the pump barbs were the hardest part but I eventually worked them on (with only minor steam burns to show for it).

Looking good to now to add the actual fluid. I'm using FluidXP+Extreme red.

So far so good. No leaks and I probably have 90% of the air out of the loop. Can't hear the pump at all nor any trickle from the rad. I'll be turning it off and on a few times while tipping it here and there. Its a little harder this time as I have to beware of the intake from the res this time, its not gonna stay flat like the testbed and I don't want air to get back into the loop.

Now we play the waiting game. /fingerscrossed

 

[Lazaredz]

LIGHTS, WATER, ACTION!!!!!!

More to come (and a little more wire management.)

I did some finetuning and was able to get 3.6 solid so:

The secret was to bump the SPP to 1.55. Have not had any issues since then. I could probably bump the CPU even more now (with some added voltage) but I'm VERY happy with my results and am starting to hit my acceptable limit on heat.

I'll play with this for a couple of days and if no issues, then back to working on the 8800GTX overclock. I think if I can find a way to up the voltage, I will be able to get some SICK overclocks with it.

NOTE:

nvappfilter.dll (or nvidias firewall) was cause HUGE issues on my machine. Specificily with utorrent but I also suspect it was involved with some other lockups I had. Anyway I did some research and I am not the only person having a problem. Best answer I found (for now) was to uninstall the nvidia control panel and wipe it from my system (crap cleaner/driver cleaner). Unfortunately this also disables the optimizaitons they put into the ethernet port (first packet and such) but at least its stable.

I'll probably try to get the control panel loaded back on the system again once I'm SURE about stability (plus it gives nvidia/evga time to sort a few issues out).

Some night pics:

 

[CrazyBeaner]

damm thats my dream rig right there. 10/10 in my book

 

[gilga]

saw the work log on nvews. Great work, nicely done. Love the colors, the only thing that worries me is the zip tied water block. Any plans for a more secure solution? Forgive me if you already provided an answer to my question

 

[ganstafm]

wow i love that system nice mod one of the best p180s ive seen

 

[Lazaredz]

saw the work log on nvews. Great work, nicely done. Love the colors, the only thing that worries me is the zip tied water block. Any plans for a more secure solution? Forgive me if you already provided an answer to my question

I was thinking of thermal adhesive, but that is REALLY perminant. I haven't had any issues with this setup since I made sure it was in place (pulled down, pushed on). Its not like it moves on its own or anything. MCP is pretty much a constant 40C, so its good.

If you have any better ideas, PLEASE let me know.

 

[annaconda]

Excellent stuff.

 

[Nicepants42]

I really must suggest that you add hose clamps to your connections. I have used 7/16 tubing on 1/2" barbs before, and while I agree that they stay tight on longer barbs, I found it very easy to remove them from shorter barbs such as pump in/out and some vga block in/out. I believe that you'll eventually get leakage if you do not add hose clamps.

I'll also add that I was using the same coolant as you, and I would not suggest that you rely on the fact that it is non-conductive. Once Fluid XP is in the loop, it can pick up ions from the blocks and become conductive.

 

[GigantoR]

I would try to find some way to hide that ONE blue light, but other than that, it looks amazing. Great job.

 

[omegatotal]

I would try to find some way to hide that ONE blue light, but other than that, it looks amazing. Great job.

little piece of black electrical tape will do the job enuff