Project: Silence

To reiterate, horrible vdroop on this XFX 780i board. Setting 1.6 vcore in the BIOS gives me ~1.488 under load according to CPU-Z, or a 0.112 drop. That's... a bit more than average, yeah? I think this thing may be getting the pencil mod treatment tomorrow when I pull the board to cut the case.

Made a new side window for the V2000B last night -- the one I got with it was broken. Such are the downsides of buying second-hand cases. That, and half the mounting screws not being included... grr. Anyway, the new window is Lexan polycarbonate rather than acrylic, so hopefully it will be a little more resilient than the original... which shattered in to even more pieces when I tried to remove it. Could've done a bit better job cutting it to shape, but it fits and none of the rough cuts show, so no big deal. Learned a lot about working with Lexan doing this, so if I ever have to make another one it will turn out a lot nicer, I think. I'll get some pictures of it and the current state of the case tomorrow, as well as hopefully getting the second radiator mounted up.

Got the machine to boot in to Windows at 4Ghz, but it wasn't Prime stable and took a ton of volts (1.56 after vdroop) so I doubt I'll be pushing much past 3.6 for now. 400Mhz either way shouldn't matter that much... though I really want that nice big round 4. There's a ton of space in the bottom of this case, maybe in a few months I'll be able to go phase with it after all. ;)

Tomorrow I'm also planning to go by Home Depot or Lowes or Michael's or something and get some moderately thick black closed cell foam and cover the better part of the inside of the case with it. I've got a /really/ annoying vibration that's developed somewhere.
 
Minor update, just to show the latest in a series of boards installed, along with my CPU waterloop (I have both GPU blocks and D-Tek unisinks for my GTXs, so the second loop will go in this weekend) and my ghetto temporary solution to the tiny but rather loud fan on the northbridge heatsink... ;)

rig04-07-2008.jpg
 
...should've run a temp comparison before and after changing the fan. It's getting up to 61C on the MCH just sitting in BIOS. Has me worried. Anyone with a reference 780i willing to look for me and see what their MCH idles at in BIOS with the stock fan?
 
silent-circuit said:
...should've run a temp comparison before and after changing the fan. It's getting up to 61C on the MCH just sitting in BIOS. Has me worried. Anyone with a reference 780i willing to look for me and see what their MCH idles at in BIOS with the stock fan?
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Wish I had something to help.. but uhm.. All I can say is.. Your water loops look pretty? :D
 
Syribo said:
Wish I had something to help.. but uhm.. All I can say is.. Your water loops look pretty? :D
Click to expand...

I really want to get one of those sexy DangerDen delrin t-fittings, but the thing itself is what, $9-$12, plus $7.50 for 3 G1/4" threaded 1/2" barbs? That's kinda crazy considering the one I'm using was a whopping $2.50 at Home Depot. I'd like to find a black one at very least. That, or run white dye in the loops. That'd be different. Don't know that there are any widely available white dyes that wouldn't cause problems, though...

Hmm.
 
Update! First in a while, I realize. I'll get some pictures to go with it tomorrow -- what I did tonight wasn't all that exciting anyway.

I've cut up my poor V2000B even more and am now planning to bottom mount the 3x120 radiator since I cannot top mount it because it will interfere with the topmost 8800 GTX as the case is rATX. That means that in addition to the 3x120 radiator hole in the top and the 2x120 radiator hole in the middle 'platform' (stupid) the previous owner made and the 3x120 hole I've now made in the bottom... I'm down to a bare minimum of aluminum here. I have plans to combat this and regain some lost structural integrity, though.

With any luck (and a huge push) I may get things back together tomorrow and fill the GPU loop for the first time. I will also have a D-Tek Fuzion v1 in the mail shortly from [H]'s very own smee! That means my Swiftech Apogee GT CPU block joins the ranks of unused blocks I'm trying to sell to someone or other. If anyone has a dual (or a quad for that matter) that needs some water, PM me and we'll work you out a deal. I'm also your man for dirt cheap 680i NB blocks. ;)

Anyway. This is mostly to tell you all that I am not in fact dead.

Also, to enginurd: I'm looking for a reasonably priced US distributor for Feser One Black/UV Blue "non-conductive" fluid. That sounds absolutely awesome -- black until you hit it with UV in the dark, then neon blue? Yes please. Sadly, they don't offer black-to-UV-blue as a dye, just as the fluid in so far as I know, and the only places I've seen it for a reasonable price, the shipping is more than the fluid itself. Not cool.


On to what's been done:

1. finally mounted up the D-Tek UniSinks on the 8800 GTXs along with the D-Tek Fuzion GPU blocks; I'm comitted now -- no more air cooling the GPUs.

2. found an old Athlon XP cooling fan and stole it, mounted it up on the northbridge heatsink for the 780i; hopefully it will prove more effective than the sad little joke of a fan XFX provides.

3. thoroughly cleaned the V2000B inside and out in preparation for things tomorrow

4. cut several pieces of black plexiglass to size for several things I hope to finish up either tomorrow or over the next few days. I've been practicing my plexi bending / shaping skills as well.

I think I nearly burned out my second Dremel. They need to make these things in industrial strength or something...
 
yay updates!

i love water cooling

i love lian-li's

i love ridiculously spec'd machines

so i therefore love this thread

... and i might even love you??!?!?!?!?
 
LIES!!! ALLLL LIES!!! He's not doing w/c for his CPU! I heard through the grapevine that he ...*gasps* ..purchased a beaten up Chilly1 phase changer!?!?!?!?!??!? OH NOES! I almost feel bad for his cpu now, as that thing is going from "Oh yeah ..a nice, sunny, warm 1587545378 degrees" ...to "H-H-H-H-H-H-HOLY H-H-H-H-H-E-E-E-E-L-L-L-L-L" ....what is this world coming to, when a man in his PRIME, gets his jollies off by trying to freeze to death a poor, defenseless, harm no one Intel CPU???? I see hate crime written all OVER that senario!!!!

Best of luck to you my friend...-we're- going to need it!

~Luzah
 
Now I need to find a sheet of black adonized aluminum to repair the huge hole I cut in the bottom of my case... -winces-
 
I swear I haven't given up yet!

Had to swap my beloved PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad Black for a Corsair TX750, because the Silencer's design makes it longer than most 750 watt PSUs and of course my phase setup needed that ~1 inch more of clearance to be mounted internally. Figures.

Still have to make a trip or two to the hardware store and work out a slightly better mounting system than what's there currently on the phase unit for the head, as well as prep some serious socket/around socket insulation. Anyone know where I can buy a fairly low wattage 12v heating element for not too much cash? I only want to warm up the back of the socket a bit to avoid condensation, not cook hamburgers or run my electrical bill up any more than necessary -- I've got enough doing that as is.

I hope to get some work done on it tomorrow, and I'll try to get some pictures of where everything's at at the moment. Unfortunately my poor V2000B has yet another gaping hole in it that isn't necessary due to the water to phase cooling plan changes, but I should be able to put a piece of plate on it, and hopefully it'll be structurally sound and not look like crap. That, or I'll sell it to someone who wants to run a metric crapload of water equipment (it can currently mount a pair of 3x120s and a 2x120 rad, internally, all at once -- yes, 8x120 total rad space) and start fresh... but considering what the big Lian Lis run, new, I can't really afford that. We'll see how it works out.
 
I'm running both 8800 GTXs watercooled on a 2x120 which... really isn't enough for them, and got the Xigmatech to replace the other waterloop I never should've sold.

I still have the phase unit... but it's not capable of handling the heat load from my quad, so it's just sitting around waiting for someone to buy it and me to lose a ton of money.

My case looks like swiss cheese. I will probably replace it once I get some more cash, sell it cheap to someone that wants to run several water loops. I'm kind of over the whole "extreme cooling" thing after the hell this project has been.
 
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